"Ye are the best nation that hath been raised up unto mankind: ye command that which is just, and ye forbid that which is unjust, and ye believe in Allah. And if they who have received the scriptures had believed, it had surely been the better for them: there are believers among them, but the greater part of them are transgressors. They shall not hurt you, unless with a slight hurt; and if they fight against you, they shall turn their backs to you, and they shall not be helped. They are smitten with vileness wheresoever they are found; unless they obtain security by entering into a treaty with Allah, and a treaty with men; and they draw on themselves indignation from Allah, and they are afflicted with poverty. This they suffer, because they disbelieved the signs of Allah, and slew the prophets unjustly; this, because they were rebellious, and transgressed." (Al-Imran - verses 109-111).

Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it" (The Martyr, Imam Hassan al-Banna, of blessed memory)."The Islamic world is on fire. Each of us should pour some water, no matter how little, to extinguish whatever one can without waiting for the others." (Sheikh Amjad al-Zahawi, of blessed memory).

In The Name Of The Most Merciful Allah

Introduction

Praise be unto Allah, to whom we resort for help, and whose forgiveness, guidance and support we seek; Allah bless the Prophet and grant him salvation, his companions and supporters, and to those who carried out his message and adopted his laws - everlasting prayers and salvation as long as the earth and heaven will last. Hereafter:

O People:

Out of the midst of troubles and the sea of suffering, out of the palpitations of faithful hearts and cleansed arms; out of the sense of duty, and in response to Allah's command, the call has gone out rallying people together and making them follow the ways of Allah, leading them to have determined will in order to fulfill their role in life, to overcome all obstacles, and surmount the difficulties on the way. Constant preparation has continued and so has the readiness to sacrifice life and all that is precious for the sake of Allah.

Thus it was that the nucleus (of the movement) was formed and started to pave its way through the tempestuous sea of hopes and expectations, of wishes and yearnings, of troubles and obstacles, of pain and challenges, both inside and outside.

When the idea was ripe, the seed grew and the plant struck root in the soil of reality, away from passing emotions, and hateful haste. The Islamic Resistance Movement emerged to carry out its role through striving for the sake of its Creator, its arms intertwined with those of all the fighters for the liberation of Palestine. The spirits of its fighters meet with the spirits of all the fighters who have sacrificed their lives on the soil of Palestine, ever since it was conquered by the companions of the Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, and until this day.

This Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement (HAMAS), clarifies its picture, reveals its identity, outlines its stand, explains its aims, speaks about its hopes, and calls for its support, adoption and joining its ranks. Our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious. It needs all sincere efforts. It is a step that inevitably should be followed by other steps. The Movement is but one squadron that should be supported by more and more squadrons from this vast Arab and Islamic world, until the enemy is vanquished and Allah's victory is realised.

Thus we see them coming on the horizon "and you shall learn about it hereafter" "Allah hath written, Verily I will prevail, and my apostles: for Allah is strong and mighty." (The Dispute - verse 21).

"Say to them, This is my way: I invite you to Allah, by an evident demonstration; both I and he who followeth me; and, praise be unto Allah! I am not an idolator." (Joseph - verse 107).

The Islamic Resistance Movement: The Movement's programme is Islam. From it, it draws its ideas, ways of thinking and understanding of the universe, life and man. It resorts to it for judgement in all its conduct, and it is inspired by it for guidance of its steps.

The Islamic Resistance Movement's Relation With the Moslem Brotherhood Group:

Article Two:

The Islamic Resistance Movement is one of the wings of Moslem Brotherhood in Palestine. Moslem Brotherhood Movement is a universal organization which constitutes the largest Islamic movement in modern times. It is characterised by its deep understanding, accurate comprehension and its complete embrace of all Islamic concepts of all aspects of life, culture, creed, politics, economics, education, society, justice and judgement, the spreading of Islam, education, art, information, science of the occult and conversion to Islam.

Structure and Formation

Article Three:

The basic structure of the Islamic Resistance Movement consists of Moslems who have given their allegiance to Allah whom they truly worship, - "I have created the jinn and humans only for the purpose of worshipping" - who know their duty towards themselves, their families and country. In all that, they fear Allah and raise the banner of Jihad in the face of the oppressors, so that they would rid the land and the people of their uncleanliness, vileness and evils."But we will oppose truth to vanity, and it shall confound the same; and behold, it shall vanish away." (Prophets - verse 18).

Article Four:

The Islamic Resistance Movement welcomes every Moslem who embraces its faith, ideology, follows its programme, keeps its secrets, and wants to belong to its ranks and carry out the duty. Allah will certainly reward such one.

Time and Place Extent of the Islamic Resistance Movement:

Article Five:

Time extent of the Islamic Resistance Movement: By adopting Islam as its way of life, the Movement goes back to the time of the birth of the Islamic message, of the righteous ancestor, for Allah is its target, the Prophet is its example and the Koran is its constitution. Its extent in place is anywhere that there are Moslems who embrace Islam as their way of life everywhere in the globe. This being so, it extends to the depth of the earth and reaches out to the heaven.

"Dost thou not see how Allah putteth forth a parable; representing a good word, as a good tree, whose root is firmly fixed in the earth, and whose branches reach unto heaven; which bringeth forth its fruit in all seasons, by the will of its Lord? Allah propoundeth parables unto men, that they may be instructed." (Abraham - verses 24-25).Characteristics and Independence:

Article Six:

The Islamic Resistance Movement is a distinguished Palestinian movement, whose allegiance is to Allah, and whose way of life is Islam. It strives to raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine, for under the wing of Islam followers of all religions can coexist in security and safety where their lives, possessions and rights are concerned. In the absence of Islam, strife will be rife, oppression spreads, evil prevails and schisms and wars will break out.

How excellent was the Moslem poet, Mohamed Ikbal, when he wrote:

"If faith is lost, there is no security and there is no life for him who does not adhere to religion. He who accepts life without religion, has taken annihilation as his companion for life."

The Universality of the Islamic Resistance Movement:

Article Seven:

As a result of the fact that those Moslems who adhere to the ways of the Islamic Resistance Movement spread all over the world, rally support for it and its stands, strive towards enhancing its struggle, the Movement is a universal one. It is well-equipped for that because of the clarity of its ideology, the nobility of its aim and the loftiness of its objectives.

On this basis, the Movement should be viewed and evaluated, and its role be recognised. He who denies its right, evades supporting it and turns a blind eye to facts, whether intentionally or unintentionally, would awaken to see that events have overtaken him and with no logic to justify his attitude. One should certainly learn from past examples.

The injustice of next-of-kin is harder to bear than the smite of the Indian sword.

"We have also sent down unto thee the book of the Koran with truth, confirming that scripture which was revealed before it; and preserving the same safe from corruption. Judge therefore between them according to that which Allah hath revealed; and follow not their desires, by swerving from the truth which hath come unto thee. Unto every of you have we given a law, and an open path; and if Allah had pleased, he had surely made you one people; but he hath thought it fit to give you different laws, that he might try you in that which he hath given you respectively. Therefore strive to excel each other in good works; unto Allah shall ye all return, and then will he declare unto you that concerning which ye have disagreed." (The Table, verse 48).

The Islamic Resistance Movement is one of the links in the chain of the struggle against the Zionist invaders. It goes back to 1939, to the emergence of the martyr Izz al-Din al Kissam and his brethren the fighters, members of Moslem Brotherhood. It goes on to reach out and become one with another chain that includes the struggle of the Palestinians and Moslem Brotherhood in the 1948 war and the Jihad operations of the Moslem Brotherhood in 1968 and after.

Moreover, if the links have been distant from each other and if obstacles, placed by those who are the lackeys of Zionism in the way of the fighters obstructed the continuation of the struggle, the Islamic Resistance Movement aspires to the realisation of Allah's promise, no matter how long that should take. The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, has said:

"The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews." (related by al-Bukhari and Moslem).

The Slogan of the Islamic Resistance Movement:

Article Eight:

Allah is its target, the Prophet is its model, the Koran its constitution: Jihad is its path and death for the sake of Allah is the loftiest of its wishes.

Objectives

Incentives and Objectives:

Article Nine:

The Islamic Resistance Movement found itself at a time when Islam has disappeared from life. Thus rules shook, concepts were upset, values changed and evil people took control, oppression and darkness prevailed, cowards became like tigers: homelands were usurped, people were scattered and were caused to wander all over the world, the state of justice disappeared and the state of falsehood replaced it. Nothing remained in its right place. Thus, when Islam is absent from the arena, everything changes. From this state of affairs the incentives are drawn.

As for the objectives: They are the fighting against the false, defeating it and vanquishing it so that justice could prevail, homelands be retrieved and from its mosques would the voice of the mu'azen emerge declaring the establishment of the state of Islam, so that people and things would return each to their right places and Allah is our helper.

"...and if Allah had not prevented men, the one by the other, verily the earth had been corrupted: but Allah is beneficient towards his creatures." (The Cow - verse 251).Article Ten:

As the Islamic Resistance Movement paves its way, it will back the oppressed and support the wronged with all its might. It will spare no effort to bring about justice and defeat injustice, in word and deed, in this place and everywhere it can reach and have influence therein.

Strategies and Methods

Strategies of the Islamic Resistance Movement: Palestine Is Islamic aqf:

Article Eleven:

The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up. Neither a single Arab country nor all Arab countries, neither any king or president, nor all the kings and presidents, neither any organization nor all of them, be they Palestinian or Arab, possess the right to do that. Palestine is an Islamic Waqf land consecrated for Moslem generations until Judgement Day. This being so, who could claim to have the right to represent Moslem generations till Judgement Day?

This is the law governing the land of Palestine in the Islamic Sharia (law) and the same goes for any land the Moslems have conquered by force, because during the times of (Islamic) conquests, the Moslems consecrated these lands to Moslem generations till the Day of Judgement.

It happened like this: When the leaders of the Islamic armies conquered Syria and Iraq, they sent to the Caliph of the Moslems, Umar bin-el-Khatab, asking for his advice concerning the conquered land - whether they should divide it among the soldiers, or leave it for its owners, or what? After consultations and discussions between the Caliph of the Moslems, Omar bin-el-Khatab and companions of the Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, it was decided that the land should be left with its owners who could benefit by its fruit. As for the real ownership of the land and the land itself, it should be consecrated for Moslem generations till Judgement Day. Those who are on the land, are there only to benefit from its fruit. This Waqf remains as long as earth and heaven remain. Any procedure in contradiction to Islamic Sharia, where Palestine is concerned, is null and void.

"Verily, this is a certain truth. Wherefore praise the name of thy Lord, the great Allah." (The Inevitable - verse 95).

Homeland and Nationalism from the Point of View of the Islamic Resistance Movement in Palestine:

Article Twelve:

Nationalism, from the point of view of the Islamic Resistance Movement, is part of the religious creed. Nothing in nationalism is more significant or deeper than in the case when an enemy should tread Moslem land. Resisting and quelling the enemy become the individual duty of every Moslem, male or female. A woman can go out to fight the enemy without her husband's permission, and so does the slave: without his master's permission.

Nothing of the sort is to be found in any other regime. This is an undisputed fact. If other nationalist movements are connected with materialistic, human or regional causes, nationalism of the Islamic Resistance Movement has all these elements as well as the more important elements that give it soul and life. It is connected to the source of spirit and the granter of life, hoisting in the sky of the homeland the heavenly banner that joins earth and heaven with a strong bond.

If Moses comes and throws his staff, both witch and magic are annulled.

"Now is the right direction manifestly distinguished from deceit: whoever therefore shall deny Tagut, and believe in Allah, he shall surely take hold with a strong handle, which shall not be broken; Allah is he who heareth and seeth." (The Cow - Verse 256).

Peaceful Solutions, Initiatives and International Conferences:

Article Thirteen:

Initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences, are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement. Abusing any part of Palestine is abuse directed against part of religion. Nationalism of the Islamic Resistance Movement is part of its religion. Its members have been fed on that. For the sake of hoisting the banner of Allah over their homeland they fight. "Allah will be prominent, but most people do not know."

Now and then the call goes out for the convening of an international conference to look for ways of solving the (Palestinian) question. Some accept, others reject the idea, for this or other reason, with one stipulation or more for consent to convening the conference and participating in it. Knowing the parties constituting the conference, their past and present attitudes towards Moslem problems, the Islamic Resistance Movement does not consider these conferences capable of realising the demands, restoring the rights or doing justice to the oppressed. These conferences are only ways of setting the infidels in the land of the Moslems as arbitraters. When did the infidels do justice to the believers?

"But the Jews will not be pleased with thee, neither the Christians, until thou follow their religion; say, The direction of Allah is the true direction. And verily if thou follow their desires, after the knowledge which hath been given thee, thou shalt find no patron or protector against Allah." (The Cow - verse 120).

There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors. The Palestinian people know better than to consent to having their future, rights and fate toyed with. As in said in the honourable Hadith:

"The people of Syria are Allah's lash in His land. He wreaks His vengeance through them against whomsoever He wishes among His slaves It is unthinkable that those who are double-faced among them should prosper over the faithful. They will certainly die out of grief and desperation."

The Three Circles:

Article Fourteen:

The question of the liberation of Palestine is bound to three circles: the Palestinian circle, the Arab circle and the Islamic circle. Each of these circles has its role in the struggle against Zionism. Each has its duties, and it is a horrible mistake and a sign of deep ignorance to overlook any of these circles. Palestine is an Islamic land which has the first of the two kiblahs (direction to which Moslems turn in praying), the third of the holy (Islamic) sanctuaries, and the point of departure for Mohamed's midnight journey to the seven heavens (i.e. Jerusalem).

"Praise be unto him who transported his servant by night, from the sacred temple of Mecca to the farther temple of Jerusalem, the circuit of which we have blessed, that we might show him some of our signs; for Allah is he who heareth, and seeth." (The Night-Journey - verse 1).

Since this is the case, liberation of Palestine is then an individual duty for very Moslem wherever he may be. On this basis, the problem should be viewed. This should be realised by every Moslem.

The day the problem is dealt with on this basis, when the three circles mobilize their capabilities, the present state of affairs will change and the day of liberation will come nearer.

"Verily ye are stronger than they, by reason of the terror cast into their breasts from Allah. This, because they are not people of prudence." (The Emigration - verse 13).The Jihad for the Liberation of Palestine is an Individual Duty:

Article Fifteen:

The day that enemies usurp part of Moslem land, Jihad becomes the individual duty of every Moslem. In face of the Jews' usurpation of Palestine, it is compulsory that the banner of Jihad be raised. To do this requires the diffusion of Islamic consciousness among the masses, both on the regional, Arab and Islamic levels. It is necessary to instill the spirit of Jihad in the heart of the nation so that they would confront the enemies and join the ranks of the fighters.

It is necessary that scientists, educators and teachers, information and media people, as well as the educated masses, especially the youth and sheikhs of the Islamic movements, should take part in the operation of awakening (the masses). It is important that basic changes be made in the school curriculum, to cleanse it of the traces of ideological invasion that affected it as a result of the orientalists and missionaries who infiltrated the region following the defeat of the Crusaders at the hands of Salah el-Din (Saladin). The Crusaders realised that it was impossible to defeat the Moslems without first having ideological invasion pave the way by upsetting their thoughts, disfiguring their heritage and violating their ideals. Only then could they invade with soldiers. This, in its turn, paved the way for the imperialistic invasion that made Allenby declare on entering Jerusalem: "Only now have the Crusades ended." General Guru stood at Salah el-Din's grave and said: "We have returned, O Salah el-Din." Imperialism has helped towards the strengthening of ideological invasion, deepening, and still does, its roots. All this has paved the way towards the loss of Palestine.

It is necessary to instill in the minds of the Moslem generations that the Palestinian problem is a religious problem, and should be dealt with on this basis. Palestine contains Islamic holy sites. In it there is al- Aqsa Mosque which is bound to the great Mosque in Mecca in an inseparable bond as long as heaven and earth speak of Isra` (Mohammed's midnight journey to the seven heavens) and Mi'raj (Mohammed's ascension to the seven heavens from Jerusalem).

"The bond of one day for the sake of Allah is better than the world and whatever there is on it. The place of one's whip in Paradise is far better than the world and whatever there is on it. A worshipper's going and coming in the service of Allah is better than the world and whatever there is on it." (As related by al-Bukhari, Moslem, al-Tarmdhi and Ibn Maja).

"I swear by the holder of Mohammed's soul that I would like to invade and be killed for the sake of Allah, then invade and be killed, and then invade again and be killed." (As related by al-Bukhari and Moslem).

The Education of the Generations:

Article Sixteen:

It is necessary to follow Islamic orientation in educating the Islamic generations in our region by teaching the religious duties, comprehensive study of the Koran, the study of the Prophet's Sunna (his sayings and doings), and learning about Islamic history and heritage from their authentic sources. This should be done by specialised and learned people, using a curriculum that would healthily form the thoughts and faith of the Moslem student. Side by side with this, a comprehensive study of the enemy, his human and financial capabilities, learning about his points of weakness and strength, and getting to know the forces supporting and helping him, should also be included. Also, it is important to be acquainted with the current events, to follow what is new and to study the analysis and commentaries made of these events. Planning for the present and future, studying every trend appearing, is a must so that the fighting Moslem would live knowing his aim, objective and his way in the midst of what is going on around him.

"O my son, verily every matter, whether good or bad, though it be the weight of a grain of mustard-seed, and be hidden in a rock, or in the heavens, or in the earth, Allah will bring the same to light; for Allah is clear-sighted and knowing. O my son, be constant at prayer, and command that which is just, and forbid that which is evil: and be patient under the afflictions which shall befall thee; for this is a duty absolutely incumbent on all men. Distort not thy face out of contempt to men, neither walk in the earth with insolence; for Allah loveth no arrogant, vain-glorious person." (Lokman - verses 16-18).

The Role of the Moslem Woman:

Article Seventeen:

The Moslem woman has a role no less important than that of the moslem man in the battle of liberation. She is the maker of men. Her role in guiding and educating the new generations is great. The enemies have realised the importance of her role. They consider that if they are able to direct and bring her up they way they wish, far from Islam, they would have won the battle. That is why you find them giving these attempts constant attention through information campaigns, films, and the school curriculum, using for that purpose their lackeys who are infiltrated through Zionist organizations under various names and shapes, such as Freemasons, Rotary Clubs, espionage groups and others, which are all nothing more than cells of subversion and saboteurs. These organizations have ample resources that enable them to play their role in societies for the purpose of achieving the Zionist targets and to deepen the concepts that would serve the enemy. These organizations operate in the absence of Islam and its estrangement among its people. The Islamic peoples should perform their role in confronting the conspiracies of these saboteurs. The day Islam is in control of guiding the affairs of life, these organizations, hostile to humanity and Islam, will be obliterated.

Article Eighteen:

Woman in the home of the fighting family, whether she is a mother or a sister, plays the most important role in looking after the family, rearing the children and embuing them with moral values and thoughts derived from Islam. She has to teach them to perform the religious duties in preparation for the role of fighting awaiting them. That is why it is necessary to pay great attention to schools and the curriculum followed in educating Moslem girls, so that they would grow up to be good mothers, aware of their role in the battle of liberation.

She has to be of sufficient knowledge and understanding where the performance of housekeeping matters are concerned, because economy and avoidance of waste of the family budget, is one of the requirements for the ability to continue moving forward in the difficult conditions surrounding us. She should put before her eyes the fact that the money available to her is just like blood which should never flow except through the veins so that both children and grown-ups could continue to live.

"Verily, the Moslems of either sex, and the true believers of either sex, and the devout men, and the devout women, and the men of veracity, and the women of veracity, and the patient men, and the patient women, and the humble men, and the humble women, and the alms-givers of either sex who remember Allah frequently; for them hath Allah prepared forgiveness and a great reward." (The Confederates - verse 25).

The Role of Islamic Art in the Battle of Liberation:

Article Nineteen:

Art has regulations and measures by which it can be determined whether it is Islamic or pre-Islamic (Jahili) art. The issues of Islamic liberation are in need of Islamic art that would take the spirit high, without raising one side of human nature above the other, but rather raise all of them harmoniously an in equilibrium.

Man is a unique and wonderful creature, made out of a handful of clay and a breath from Allah. Islamic art addresses man on this basis, while pre-Islamic art addresses the body giving preference to the clay component in it.

The book, the article, the bulletin, the sermon, the thesis, the popular poem, the poetic ode, the song, the play and others, contain the characteristics of Islamic art, then these are among the requirements of ideological mobilization, renewed food for the journey and recreation for the soul. The road is long and suffering is plenty. The soul will be bored, but Islamic art renews the energies, resurrects the movement, arousing in them lofty meanings and proper conduct. "Nothing can improve the self if it is in retreat except shifting from one mood to another."

All this is utterly serious and no jest, for those who are fighters do not jest.

Social Mutual Responsibility:

Article Twenty:

Moslem society is a mutually responsible society. The Prophet, prayers and greetings be unto him, said: "Blessed are the generous, whether they were in town or on a journey, who have collected all that they had and shared it equally among themselves."

The Islamic spirit is what should prevail in every Moslem society. The society that confronts a vicious enemy which acts in a way similar to Nazism, making no differentiation between man and woman, between children and old people - such a society is entitled to this Islamic spirit. Our enemy relies on the methods of collective punishment. He has deprived people of their homeland and properties, pursued them in their places of exile and gathering, breaking bones, shooting at women, children and old people, with or without a reason. The enemy has opened detention camps where thousands and thousands of people are thrown and kept under sub-human conditions. Added to this, are the demolition of houses, rendering children orphans, meting cruel sentences against thousands of young people, and causing them to spend the best years of their lives in the dungeons of prisons.

In their Nazi treatment, the Jews made no exception for women or children. Their policy of striking fear in the heart is meant for all. They attack people where their breadwinning is concerned, extorting their money and threatening their honour. They deal with people as if they were the worst war criminals. Deportation from the homeland is a kind of murder.

To counter these deeds, it is necessary that social mutual responsibility should prevail among the people. The enemy should be faced by the people as a single body which if one member of it should complain, the rest of the body would respond by feeling the same pains.

Article Twenty-One:

Mutual social responsibility means extending assistance, financial or moral, to all those who are in need and joining in the execution of some of the work. Members of the Islamic Resistance Movement should consider the interests of the masses as their own personal interests. They must spare no effort in achieving and preserving them. They must prevent any foul play with the future of the upcoming generations and anything that could cause loss to society. The masses are part of them and they are part of the masses. Their strength is theirs, and their future is theirs. Members of the Islamic Resistance Movement should share the people's joy and grief, adopt the demands of the public and whatever means by which they could be realised. The day that such a spirit prevails, brotherliness would deepen, cooperation, sympathy and unity will be enhanced and the ranks will be solidified to confront the enemies.

Supportive Forces Behind the Enemy:

Article Twenty-Two:

For a long time, the enemies have been planning, skillfully and with precision, for the achievement of what they have attained. They took into consideration the causes affecting the current of events. They strived to amass great and substantive material wealth which they devoted to the realisation of their dream. With their money, they took control of the world media, news agencies, the press, publishing houses, broadcasting stations, and others. With their money they stirred revolutions in various parts of the world with the purpose of achieving their interests and reaping the fruit therein. They were behind the French Revolution, the Communist revolution and most of the revolutions we heard and hear about, here and there. With their money they formed secret societies, such as Freemasons, Rotary Clubs, the Lions and others in different parts of the world for the purpose of sabotaging societies and achieving Zionist interests. With their money they were able to control imperialistic countries and instigate them to colonize many countries in order to enable them to exploit their resources and spread corruption there.

You may speak as much as you want about regional and world wars. They were behind World War I, when they were able to destroy the Islamic Caliphate, making financial gains and controlling resources. They obtained the Balfour Declaration, formed the League of Nations through which they could rule the world. They were behind World War II, through which they made huge financial gains by trading in armaments, and paved the way for the establishment of their state. It was they who instigated the replacement of the League of Nations with the United Nations and the Security Council to enable them to rule the world through them. There is no war going on anywhere, without having their finger in it.

"So often as they shall kindle a fire for war, Allah shall extinguish it; and they shall set their minds to act corruptly in the earth, but Allah loveth not the corrupt doers." (The Table - verse 64).

The imperialistic forces in the Capitalist West and Communist East, support the enemy with all their might, in money and in men. These forces take turns in doing that. The day Islam appears, the forces of infidelity would unite to challenge it, for the infidels are of one nation.

"O true believers, contract not an intimate friendship with any besides yourselves: they will not fail to corrupt you. They wish for that which may cause you to perish: their hatred hath already appeared from out of their mouths; but what their breasts conceal is yet more inveterate. We have already shown you signs of their ill will towards you, if ye understand." (The Family of Imran - verse 118).

It is not in vain that the verse is ended with Allah's words "if ye understand."

Our Attitudes Towards:

A. Islamic Movements:

Article Twenty-Three:

The Islamic Resistance Movement views other Islamic movements with respect and appreciation. If it were at variance with them on one point or opinion, it is in agreement with them on other points and understandings. It considers these movements, if they reveal good intentions and dedication to Allah, that they fall into the category of those who are trying hard since they act within the Islamic circle. Each active person has his share.

The Islamic Resistance Movement considers all these movements as a fund for itself. It prays to Allah for guidance and directions for all and it spares no effort to keep the banner of unity raised, ever striving for its realisation in accordance with the Koran and the Prophet's directives.

"And cleave all of you unto the covenant of Allah, and depart not from it, and remember the favour of Allah towards you: since ye were enemies, and he reconciled your hearts, and ye became companions and brethren by his favour: and ye were on the brink of a pit of fire, and he delivered you thence. Allah declareth unto you his signs, that ye may be directed." (The Family of Imran - Verse 102).

Article Twenty-Four:

The Islamic Resistance Movement does not allow slandering or speaking ill of individuals or groups, for the believer does not indulge in such malpractices. It is necessary to differentiate between this behaviour and the stands taken by certain individuals and groups. Whenever those stands are erroneous, the Islamic Resistance Movement preserves the right to expound the error and to warn against it. It will strive to show the right path and to judge the case in question with objectivity. Wise conduct is indeed the target of the believer who follows it wherever he discerns it.

"Allah loveth not the speaking ill of anyone in public, unless he who is injured call for assistance; and Allah heareth and knoweth: whether ye publish a good action, or conceal it, or forgive evil, verily Allah is gracious and powerful." (Women - verses 147-148).

B. Nationalist Movements in the Palestinian Arena:

Article Twenty-Five:

The Islamic Resistance Movement respects these movements and appreciates their circumstances and the conditions surrounding and affecting them. It encourages them as long as they do not give their allegiance to the Communist East or the Crusading West. It confirms to all those who are integrated in it, or sympathetic towards it, that the Islamic Resistance Movement is a fighting movement that has a moral and enlightened look of life and the way it should cooperate with the other (movements). It detests opportunism and desires only the good of people, individuals and groups alike. It does not seek material gains, personal fame, nor does it look for a reward from others. It works with its own resources and whatever is at its disposal "and prepare for them whatever force you can", for the fulfilment of the duty, and the earning of Allah's favour. It has no other desire than that.

The Movement assures all the nationalist trends operating in the Palestinian arena for the liberation of Palestine, that it is there for their support and assistance. It will never be more than that, both in words and deeds, now and in the future. It is there to bring together and not to divide, to preserve and not to squander, to unify and not to throw asunder. It evaluates every good word, sincere effort and good offices. It closes the door in the face of side disagreements and does not lend an ear to rumours and slanders, while at the same time fully realising the right for self-defence.

Anything contrary or contradictory to these trends, is a lie disseminated by enemies or their lackeys for the purpose of sowing confusion, disrupting the ranks and occupy them with side issues.

"O true believers, if a wicked man come unto you with a tale, inquire strictly into the truth thereof; lest ye hurt people through ignorance, and afterwards repent of what ye have done." (The Inner Apartments - verse 6).

Article Twenty-Six:

In viewing the Palestinian nationalist movements that give allegiance neither to the East nor the West, in this positive way, the Islamic Resistance Movement does not refrain from discussing new situations on the regional or international levels where the Palestinian question is concerned. It does that in such an objective manner revealing the extent of how much it is in harmony or contradiction with the national interests in the light of the Islamic point of view.

C. The Palestinian Liberation Organization:

Article Twenty-Seven:

The Palestinian Liberation Organization is the closest to the heart of the Islamic Resistance Movement. It contains the father and the brother, the next of kin and the friend. The Moslem does not estrange himself from his father, brother, next of kin or friend. Our homeland is one, our situation is one, our fate is one and the enemy is a joint enemy to all of us.

Because of the situations surrounding the formation of the Organization, of the ideological confusion prevailing in the Arab world as a result of the ideological invasion under whose influence the Arab world has fallen since the defeat of the Crusaders and which was, and still is, intensified through orientalists, missionaries and imperialists, the Organization adopted the idea of the secular state. And that it how we view it.

That is why, with all our appreciation for The Palestinian Liberation Organization - and what it can develop into - and without belittling its role in the Arab-Israeli conflict, we are unable to exchange the present or future Islamic Palestine with the secular idea. The Islamic nature of Palestine is part of our religion and whoever takes his religion lightly is a loser.

"Who will be adverse to the religion of Abraham, but he whose mind is infatuated? (The Cow - verse 130).

The day The Palestinian Liberation Organization adopts Islam as its way of life, we will become its soldiers, and fuel for its fire that will burn the enemies.

Until such a day, and we pray to Allah that it will be soon, the Islamic Resistance Movement's stand towards the PLO is that of the son towards his father, the brother towards his brother, and the relative to relative, suffers his pain and supports him in confronting the enemies, wishing him to be wise and well-guided.

"Stand by your brother, for he who is brotherless is like the fighter who goes to battle without arms. One's cousin is the wing one flies with - could the bird fly without wings?"

D. Arab and Islamic Countries:

Article Twenty-Eight:

The Zionist invasion is a vicious invasion. It does not refrain from resorting to all methods, using all evil and contemptible ways to achieve its end. It relies greatly in its infiltration and espionage operations on the secret organizations it gave rise to, such as the Freemasons, The Rotary and Lions clubs, and other sabotage groups. All these organizations, whether secret or open, work in the interest of Zionism and according to its instructions. They aim at undermining societies, destroying values, corrupting consciences, deteriorating character and annihilating Islam. It is behind the drug trade and alcoholism in all its kinds so as to facilitate its control and expansion.

Arab countries surrounding Israel are asked to open their borders before the fighters from among the Arab and Islamic nations so that they could consolidate their efforts with those of their Moslem brethren in Palestine.

As for the other Arab and Islamic countries, they are asked to facilitate the movement of the fighters from and to it, and this is the least thing they could do.

We should not forget to remind every Moslem that when the Jews conquered the Holy City in 1967, they stood on the threshold of the Aqsa Mosque and proclaimed that "Mohammed is dead, and his descendants are all women."

Israel, Judaism and Jews challenge Islam and the Moslem people. "May the cowards never sleep."

The Islamic Resistance Movement hopes that all these groupings will side with it in all spheres, would support it, adopt its stand and solidify its activities and moves, work towards rallying support for it so that the Islamic people will be a base and a stay for it, supplying it with strategic depth an all human material and informative spheres, in time and in place. This should be done through the convening of solidarity conferences, the issuing of explanatory bulletins, favourable articles and booklets, enlightening the masses regarding the Palestinian issue, clarifying what confronts it and the conspiracies woven around it. They should mobilize the Islamic nations, ideologically, educationally and culturally, so that these peoples would be equipped to perform their role in the decisive battle of liberation, just as they did when they vanquished the Crusaders and the Tatars and saved human civilization. Indeed, that is not difficult for Allah.

"Allah hath written, Verily I will prevail, and my apostles: for Allah is strong and mighty." (The Dispute - verse 21).

Article Thirty:

Writers, intellectuals, media people, orators, educaters and teachers, and all the various sectors in the Arab and Islamic world - all of them are called upon to perform their role, and to fulfill their duty, because of the ferocity of the Zionist offensive and the Zionist influence in many countries exercised through financial and media control, as well as the consequences that all this lead to in the greater part of the world.

Jihad is not confined to the carrying of arms and the confrontation of the enemy. The effective word, the good article, the useful book, support and solidarity - together with the presence of sincere purpose for the hoisting of Allah's banner higher and higher - all these are elements of the Jihad for Allah's sake.

"Whosoever mobilises a fighter for the sake of Allah is himself a fighter. Whosoever supports the relatives of a fighter, he himself is a fighter." (related by al-Bukhari, Moslem, Abu-Dawood and al-Tarmadhi).

F. Followers of Other Religions: The Islamic Resistance Movement Is A Humanistic Movement:

Article Thirty-One:

The Islamic Resistance Movement is a humanistic movement. It takes care of human rights and is guided by Islamic tolerance when dealing with the followers of other religions. It does not antagonize anyone of them except if it is antagonized by it or stands in its way to hamper its moves and waste its efforts.

Under the wing of Islam, it is possible for the followers of the three religions - Islam, Christianity and Judaism - to coexist in peace and quiet with each other. Peace and quiet would not be possible except under the wing of Islam. Past and present history are the best witness to that.

It is the duty of the followers of other religions to stop disputing the sovereignty of Islam in this region, because the day these followers should take over there will be nothing but carnage, displacement and terror. Everyone of them is at variance with his fellow-religionists, not to speak about followers of other religionists. Past and present history are full of examples to prove this fact.

"They will not fight against you in a body, except in fenced towns, or from behind walls. Their strength in war among themselves is great: thou thinkest them to be united; but their hearts are divided. This, because they are people who do not understand." (The Emigration - verse 14).

Islam confers upon everyone his legitimate rights. Islam prevents the incursion on other people's rights. The Zionist Nazi activities against our people will not last for long. "For the state of injustice lasts but one day, while the state of justice lasts till Doomsday."

"As to those who have not borne arms against you on account of religion, nor turned you out of your dwellings, Allah forbiddeth you not to deal kindly with them, and to behave justly towards them; for Allah loveth those who act justly." (The Tried - verse .

The Attempt to Isolate the Palestinian People:

Article Thirty-Two:

World Zionism, together with imperialistic powers, try through a studied plan and an intelligent strategy to remove one Arab state after another from the circle of struggle against Zionism, in order to have it finally face the Palestinian people only. Egypt was, to a great extent, removed from the circle of the struggle, through the treacherous Camp David Agreement. They are trying to draw other Arab countries into similar agreements and to bring them outside the circle of struggle.

The Islamic Resistance Movement calls on Arab and Islamic nations to take up the line of serious and persevering action to prevent the success of this horrendous plan, to warn the people of the danger eminating from leaving the circle of struggle against Zionism. Today it is Palestine, tomorrow it will be one country or another. The Zionist plan is limitless. After Palestine, the Zionists aspire to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates. When they will have digested the region they overtook, they will aspire to further expansion, and so on. Their plan is embodied in the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion", and their present conduct is the best proof of what we are saying.

Leaving the circle of struggle with Zionism is high treason, and cursed be he who does that. "for whoso shall turn his back unto them on that day, unless he turneth aside to fight, or retreateth to another party of the faithful, shall draw on himself the indignation of Allah, and his abode shall be hell; an ill journey shall it be thither." (The Spoils - verse 16). There is no way out except by concentrating all powers and energies to face this Nazi, vicious Tatar invasion. The alternative is loss of one's country, the dispersion of citizens, the spread of vice on earth and the destruction of religious values. Let every person know that he is responsible before Allah, for "the doer of the slightest good deed is rewarded in like, and the does of the slightest evil deed is also rewarded in like."

The Islamic Resistance Movement consider itself to be the spearhead of the circle of struggle with world Zionism and a step on the road. The Movement adds its efforts to the efforts of all those who are active in the Palestinian arena. Arab and Islamic Peoples should augment by further steps on their part; Islamic groupings all over the Arab world should also do the same, since all of these are the best-equipped for the future role in the fight with the warmongering Jews.

"..and we have put enmity and hatred between them, until the day of resurrection. So often as they shall kindle a fire of war, Allah shall extinguish it; and they shall set their minds to act corruptly in the earth, but Allah loveth not the corrupt doers." (The Table - verse 64).

Article Thirty-Three:

The Islamic Resistance Movement, being based on the common coordinated and interdependent conceptions of the laws of the universe, and flowing in the stream of destiny in confronting and fighting the enemies in defence of the Moslems and Islamic civilization and sacred sites, the first among which is the Aqsa Mosque, urges the Arab and Islamic peoples, their governments, popular and official groupings, to fear Allah where their view of the Islamic Resistance Movement and their dealings with it are concerned. They should back and support it, as Allah wants them to, extending to it more and more funds till Allah's purpose is achieved when ranks will close up, fighters join other fighters and masses everywhere in the Islamic world will come forward in response to the call of duty while loudly proclaiming: Hail to Jihad. Their cry will reach the heavens and will go on being resounded until liberation is achieved, the invaders vanquished and Allah's victory comes about.

"And Allah will certainly assist him who shall be on his side: for Allah is strong and mighty." (The Pilgrimage - verse 40).

The Testimony of History

Across History in Confronting the Invaders:

Article Thirty-Four:

Palestine is the navel of the globe and the crossroad of the continents. Since the dawn of history, it has been the target of expansionists. The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, had himself pointed to this fact in the noble Hadith in which he called on his honourable companion, Ma'adh ben-Jabal, saying: O Ma'ath, Allah throw open before you, when I am gone, Syria, from Al-Arish to the Euphrates. Its men, women and slaves will stay firmly there till the Day of Judgement. Whoever of you should choose one of the Syrian shores, or the Holy Land, he will be in constant struggle till the Day of Judgement."

Expansionists have more than once put their eye on Palestine which they attacked with their armies to fulfill their designs on it. Thus it was that the Crusaders came with their armies, bringing with them their creed and carrying their Cross. They were able to defeat the Moslems for a while, but the Moslems were able to retrieve the land only when they stood under the wing of their religious banner, united their word, hallowed the name of Allah and surged out fighting under the leadership of Salah ed-Din al-Ayyubi. They fought for almost twenty years and at the end the Crusaders were defeated and Palestine was liberated.

"Say unto those who believe not, Ye shall be overcome, and thrown together into hell; an unhappy couch it shall be." (The Family of Imran - verse 12).

This is the only way to liberate Palestine. There is no doubt about the testimony of history. It is one of the laws of the universe and one of the rules of existence. Nothing can overcome iron except iron. Their false futile creed can only be defeated by the righteous Islamic creed. A creed could not be fought except by a creed, and in the last analysis, victory is for the just, for justice is certainly victorious.

"Our word hath formerly been given unto our servants the apostles; that they should certainly be assisted against the infidels, and that our armies should surely be the conquerors." (Those Who Rank Themselves - verses 171-172).

Article Thirty-Five:

The Islamic Resistance Movement views seriously the defeat of the Crusaders at the hands of Salah ed-Din al-Ayyubi and the rescuing of Palestine from their hands, as well as the defeat of the Tatars at Ein Galot, breaking their power at the hands of Qataz and Al-Dhaher Bivers and saving the Arab world from the Tatar onslaught which aimed at the destruction of every meaning of human civilization. The Movement draws lessons and examples from all this. The present Zionist onslaught has also been preceded by Crusading raids from the West and other Tatar raids from the East. Just as the Moslems faced those raids and planned fighting and defeating them, they should be able to confront the Zionist invasion and defeat it. This is indeed no problem for the Almighty Allah, provided that the intentions are pure, the determination is true and that Moslems have benefited from past experiences, rid themselves of the effects of ideological invasion and followed the customs of their ancestors.

The Islamic Resistance Movement is Composed of Soldiers:

Article Thirty-Six:

While paving its way, the Islamic Resistance Movement, emphasizes time and again to all the sons of our people, to the Arab and Islamic nations, that it does not seek personal fame, material gain, or social prominence. It does not aim to compete against any one from among our people, or take his place. Nothing of the sort at all. It will not act against any of the sons of Moslems or those who are peaceful towards it from among non-Moslems, be they here or anywhere else. It will only serve as a support for all groupings and organizations operating against the Zionist enemy and its lackeys.

The Islamic Resistance Movement adopts Islam as its way of life. Islam is its creed and religion. Whoever takes Islam as his way of life, be it an organization, a grouping, a country or any other body, the Islamic Resistance Movement considers itself as their soldiers and nothing more.

We ask Allah to show us the right course, to make us an example to others and to judge between us and our people with truth. "O Lord, do thou judge between us and our nation with truth; for thou art the best judge." (Al Araf - Verse 89).

The last of our prayers will be praise to Allah, the Master of the Universe.

Secretary of State John Kerry's push for a ceasefire in Gaza last week was so flawed it managed to unite Israel's fractious political leadership in opposition while simultaneously being lambasted by the Palestinian Authority.

The proposal called for negotiations on Hamas demands, including opening border crossings into Gaza and relaxed boating restrictions off the Gaza coast. In addition, its language reportedly upgraded Hamas – a designated terrorist organization – to an equal plane with Israel. Then, President Obama called Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Sunday to make "clear the strategic imperative of instituting an immediate, unconditional humanitarian ceasefire that ends hostilities now and leads to a permanent cessation of hostilities based on the November 2012 ceasefire agreement."

In other words, Obama demanded that Israel institute an immediate unilateral ceasefire even while Hamas continues its terrorist operations against Israel. True to form, Hamas escalated its attacks on Monday.

A mortar attack on the community of Eshkol near the Gaza border killed four Israeli civilians and wounded nine others, five of whom were in critical condition. At the same time, a squad of heavily-armed Hamas terrorists emerged from a tunnel near Kibbutz Nahal Oz in an attempt to carry out a mass murder attack. The Israeli military killed one terrorist and is searching for the others.

The U.S. response? In addition to more demands that Israel stop trying to root out the Hamas terror infrastructure in Gaza, administration officials Monday expressed anger that the Israelis would leak details of the proposed ceasefire and criticize Kerry.

This overlooks an important fact – Kerry's proposal also angered the Palestinian Authority – with a senior official telling London-based Saudi newspaper Al-Sharq Al-Awsat that "Kerry wanted to create a framework that would be an alternative to the Egyptian initiative and to our concept regarding it, in order to please Qatar and Turkey." The move would strengthen the Muslim Brotherhood's stature, the PA official said, "because the Americans think – and will be proven wrong – that that moderate political Islam represented by the Muslim Brotherhood can combat radical Islam..."

In their haste to bring about an end to the hostilities, U.S. officials have lost perspective about the conflict and how to prevent the next flare-up. Israel has acknowledged that the depth and sophistication of the Hamas tunnel network greatly surpassed previous assessments. Reports indicate that Hamas was planning to use the tunnels to wage a massive attack involving 200 terrorists against communities neighboring Gaza during the Jewish high holiday Rosh Hashanah.

Yet U.S. officials continue to pressure Israel has accepted five ceasefires. All of them were broken by Hamas.

Reports out of Israel say Kerry's proposal did nothing to help identify and dismantle Hamas tunnels or strip it of its remaining rocket arsenal. Israel's security cabinet quickly and unanimously rejected it.

Israeli Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, considered the most dovish in the cabinet, blasted the proposal as "completely unacceptable" and one that "would strengthen extremists in the region."

While its specifics have attracted scant attention in American media, it left Israeli commentators dumbstruck. The result "is clearly a major crisis in Israel-US ties at a time when Israel finds itself in the midst of a complex and costly war," Times of Israel editor David Horovitz wrote Sunday in a commentary headlined "John Kerry: The betrayal."An unnamed senior U.S. official briefed Israeli reporters Sunday night, claiming the proposal is being misrepresented. "There was no Kerry plan," the official said. "There was a concept based on the Egyptian cease-fire plans that Israel had signed off on."

No one else in the arena seems to agree. The proposal was based on Kerry's consultations with Qatar and Turkey – Hamas' two leading patrons – a move which angered Palestinian Authority officials and other Arab states for empowering a terrorist group and excluding them.

"Those who want Qatar or Turkey to represent them should leave and go live there," PA President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah group said in a statement that Jerusalem Post reporter Khaled Abu Toameh wrote was "directed against Hamas."

Kerry's disastrous idea, giving Hamas a clear diplomatic win at a time it had nothing to show but devastation for a fight it started, drew perverse praise.

"It takes a certain artistry to irritate and annoy not only the Israeli left and the Israeli right at the same time, but also both Jerusalem and Ramallah," the Jerusalem Post's Herb Keinon noted wryly.

"This provided Hamas with a badly needed tailwind," Keinon wrote. "Sure, they were getting clobbered, their human shields were dying, but they were getting what they wanted. The world was talking to them, recognizing their standing in Gaza, presenting their demands. Why stop, things were going their way. And, indeed, they didn't stop, and violated three different cease fires Saturday night and Sunday, including one that they themselves declared."

As I noted previously, it was under the terms of the 2012 ceasefire Obama and Kerry are pushing to restore that Hamas diverted money meant to improve life for people in Gaza to building its tunnel network and built an arsenal of 10,000 rockets – each one earmarked for firing on Israeli civilians.

If there are suggestions for a better way for Israel to unearth the tunnels and to stop the rocket fire emanating from crammed neighborhoods surrounded by civilians, by all means, offer them up.

It's safe to assume that, in the course of invasions in Afghanistan and Iraq, American forces killed many more civilians than the last three Gaza conflicts combined. It's a product of war. The difference is there were not network cameras poised to show the carnage from a drone strike or other inadvertent killing.

But let's not pretend that this conflict can be resolved by giving Hamas what it wants. Its officials may talk about economic suffering among Palestinians in Gaza. But if the past month has proven anything, it is that the Hamas leadership cares more about creating Israeli suffering than alleviating the pain and devastation its actions have brought upon the Palestinians. The millions of dollars diverted to building tunnels, to importing or manufacturing rockets, could have done wonders to create infrastructure and jobs in Gaza. And none of that activity would have generated Israeli military strikes. But those facts seem to be lost on the mainstream media which Hamas has handily manipulated to show images of Palestinian casualties rather than show the civilian hiding places—like schools, hospitals, mosques, kindergartens, UN centers—where Hamas has brazenly stored weapons and from where it has also thousands of launched rockets and missiles at Israel.

Hamas political leader Khaled Meshaal made clear what Hamas ultimately desires during an interview with CBS' Charlie Rose that was aired on "Face the Nation" Sunday. Rose tried to pin Meshaal down on Hamas' willingness to accept a two-state solution and coexist peacefully next to a Jewish state.

"Do you want to recognize Israel as a Jewish state?" Rose asked.

"No," Meshaal said. After a long pause, he added, "I said I do not want to live with a state of occupiers." To Hamas, as its charter makes clear, all of Israel is occupied Palestinian land. There can be no peace until Hamas either gives up on its founding principle to destroy Israel or until it is removed from power and influence.Pushing a ceasefire that accentuates Hamas demands could not be more counterproductive.

Kerry may be feeling some of the sting from all the criticism. In new remarks Monday, he emphasized the need to disarm Hamas.But he has lost tremendous credibility with those elements who stand opposed to Hamas and its benefactors in Qatar and Turkey. "Jerusalem," writes Horovitz, "now regards him as duplicitous and dangerous."

If he really cares about generating a lasting peace, his next, best move might be resignation. As for President Obama, he might start to educate himself about Hamas' horrific murderous actions and agenda before approving a plan that allows this al-Qaida clone to resurrect itself after being seriously wounded by defensive Israeli actions.Steven Emerson is executive director of the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) (www.investigativeproject.org), an international counter terrorist institute focusing on the worldwide threat of radical Islam. He is also the author of six books on terrorism and national security, and producer of two documentaries on terrorism, the latest being an expose of the covert Muslim Brotherhood infrastructure in the US entitled, "Jihad in America: the Grand Deception" (www.granddeception.com) available at Amazon.com

Reading all of these posts left me wonder....."Where do Hamas get all this money to attack people with, if they claim their people are suffering...?"Found this:"Where Hamas Gets Its Money

Amid international condemnation of Israel, one would never guess that humanitarian aid and even cash is flowing into Hamas coffers, while its rockets continue to hit Israel.

It is important to alleviate the suffering of innocent Palestinians. However, since Gaza is under Hamas control, we have to ask: Will aid reach the suffering populace? If the past is any indication, most funds and supplies will end up with Hamas.

The world community that berates Israel for defending itself from constant attacks by the terrorist group also facilitated Hamas’ victory in the 2006 Palestinian Authority election, when it was allowed to run under the name “List of Change and Reform.“

Since then, despite repeated promises to cut off funds for Hamas, international aid organizations and many countries kept on sending money to Gaza, purportedly for humanitarian aid. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, raises money for Gaza through its Web site, with payments going through WorldPay (part of the Royal Bank of Scotland Group ), the Arab Bank PLC in Gaza and HSBC in Amman, Jordan. Those funds come in addition to UNRWA’s annual budget of $400 million.

The $7 billion to $10 billion that the Palestinian Authority has received since 1993 has come from the European Union, the U.N., the U.S., Saudi Arabia and other Arab League countries. France alone has sent more than $3 billion. This influx of cash has done little to advance the development of a viable Palestinian state or of peace in the region. Rather, it has helped to fuel the Palestinian leadership’s terrorist agenda, and kept the Palestinian people oppressed and disenfranchised.

In the mid-1990s–shortly after the Palestinian Authority came into existence–the Palestinian writer Fawaz Turki described the regime as “the dissolution of civilized society, of all civil norms and all hope.” Despite all of this, most international organizations and the world community at large continue to ignore the ongoing human and civil rights violations perpetrated against the Palestinians by their own leadership, including the destruction of Gaza and the death of hundreds of its citizens.

In a meeting hosted by Abu Dhabi on Jan. 12, representatives from the Palestinian Authority and several donor countries, including Egypt, Britain and the U.S., met to discuss efforts to raise and send undisclosed amounts of money to help Palestinians in Gaza. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) also pledged to rebuild schools, mosques, hospitals and 1,300 damaged Gaza houses. In addition, the Emirates raised more than $87 million in a nationwide telethon on Jan. 9.

How would the money find its way to Gaza? “It is now the job of experts to funnel the cash,” said UAE Foreign Minister Anwar Gargash. The experts do not have to look hard: They can funnel the money through the vast tunnel network that runs from the Egyptian border into Gaza. The Israelis have destroyed many of these tunnels, but enough remain through which to continue to smuggle cash and other supplies, including weapons.

The buildup of this underground complex sped up after March 2007, when the U.S. gave Egypt $23 million in special aid to stop underground smuggling into Gaza. Despite that apparent failure, on Friday, Jan. 16, under American and international pressure, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni signed an agreement with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, under which the U.S. will commit resources to help Egypt patrol the boundary.

Supplies and cash for Hamas have been pledged from all over the world, not merely from Iran, On Jan. 3, Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz donated $8 million of the more than $26.7 million raised in a national fundraising telethon for the “Relief of the Palestinian People in Gaza.” Qatar, which pledged $50 million when Hamas was elected in 2006, promised to send more.

While condemning Israel, the European Union pledged more than $4 million in “humanitarian aid” to Gaza. In 2008, it provided Gaza with $55.6 million. In addition, European Union member states pledged more than $41 million, including $10.5 million from the British government’s Department for International Development. Japan pledged $10 million, and terror-struck India said it would send $1 million. Norway has announced a pledge of about $4.5 million, while Australia is adding $3.5 million in addition to the $32 million it gave in 2008. Additionally, other countries sent tons of medical and humanitarian supplies. This more than meets the UNRWA emergency appeal for $34 million.

Incredibly, Israel also supplies Hamas with cash. It began transferring truckloads of cash to Gaza after Hamas’ violent takeover of the territory in June 2007. The first transfer of more than $51 million (delivered in Israeli shekels) was purportedly to strengthen the influence of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in the Gaza Strip and pay the salaries of 35,000 Palestinian Authority employees then allegedly loyal to him. Among those employees, however, were Ismail Haniya, the Hamas-appointed prime minister in Gaza, and Mahmoud Zahar, Hamas’ foreign minister.

Zahar prides himself on many successful terrorist attacks against Israel, and his position regarding Israel is clear. “All of Palestine, every inch of Palestine belongs to the Muslims,” he has said. If the goal was to strengthen Abbas’ position, the cash should have been delivered to him in the West Bank city of Ramallah. From there, he could have transferred the money to Gaza, as he has done in the past, and claim credit for it.

Yet the Israelis relied on Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad’s promise that the money would not reach Hamas or be used for any terrorist activity–even though Fayyad has little control over Palestinian Authority funds in Fatah-controlled West Bank, let alone in Hamas-controlled Gaza. Not long ago, Fayyad himself stated (and not for the first time) that controlling Palestinian finances “is virtually impossible.” Besides, promises by Fatah leaders that they will stop funds from going to Hamas are dubious at best.

Despite Fatah-Hamas disagreements, the Palestinian Authority’s Fatah-led government announced on Jan. 15, 2008, its intentions to give Hamas 40% ($3.1 billion) of the $7.4 billion pledged in December 2007 by international donors. In October 2008, despite the crackdown on Fatah members in Gaza, the Palestinian Authority was paying the salaries of 77,000 “employees.”

In December 2008, under U.S. and international pressure, Israel delivered between $64 million and $77 million in cash to Gaza. When Hamas rocket attacks intensified, Israeli banks started refusing to transfer cash to Gaza. World Bank President Robert B. Zoellick, International Monetary Fund Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn, and Tony Blair, who is now Mideast envoy for the E.U., Russia, the U.N. and the U.S., sent a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert complaining that such refusals are “counterproductive and ultimately harm Palestinian moderates.” Clearly, the world community is set on seeing the terrorist group Hamas as legitimate. But demanding that Israel pay its own executioners goes way too far."

Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld is director of the American Center for Democracy and author of Funding Evil: How Terrorism is Financed and How to Stop It

Victor Davis Hanson:"Hamas sees the death of its civilians as an advantage; Israel sees the death of its civilians as a disaster. ""When Israel wins militarily, it seems to lose politically. When Hamas loses, it seems to win."

"Timidity explains much of the Europeans’ easy damnation of Israel. Putin escapes the disdain accorded to Netanyahu, because Netanyahu governs a small nation and is predictably reasonable; Putin governs a large one and is predictably unreasonable. Trashing Putin might involve some risk; trashing Netanyahu brings psychological relief. If Israel were large and Netanyahu demonic, and if Russia were small and Putin Westernized and reasonable, then our cheap scorn would be leveled at Russia and not Israel."

" If Israel blows up Hamas’s tunnels, dismantles its arsenals, destroys its missiles, devastates its military, and leaves Hamas weak and discredited, the world will quietly turn its attention away in a sort of grudging admiration of Israel’s success, with an unspoken conclusion that Hamas may have gotten what it asked for. And those left amid the wreckage that Hamas brought upon them will among themselves blame Hamas as much as Israel for their miseries — in the tradition in which losers blame their own dictators as much as they blame the victors."

"Israel must ensure that Hamas nevertheless loses far more than Israel itself does, not because the world will publicly sympathize with the cause of the Jewish state, but because, for all its ideological chest-pounding, an amoral world still privately gravitates to the successful and distances itself from the failed. Only if Israel finishes its ongoing dismantling of Hamas will the current war end."http://www.nationalreview.com/article/383942/winning-loselose-war-victor-davis-hanson/page/0/1

In case anyone still thinks the two-state solution is a good idea... Former adviser to Iran’s defense minister said this week that Tehran would seek to arm Palestinians in the West Bank with “strategic weapons” including missiles to target Tel Aviv and Haifa. Iranian researcher Amir Mousavi told Lebanon’s Mayadeen TV channel that “a major reshuffle awaits the region” as “new and significant fronts will be opened all of a sudden, to support the Palestinian cause in the West Bank and Gaza.” “A new front must be opened from the West Bank, after it has been armed, especially with missiles,” Mousavi said in comments relayed by the Middle East Media Research Institute, “because we know very well that the distance between the West Bank and Tel Aviv, Haifa, and other areas is much shorter than the distance from Gaza. Therefore, simple means are required. There is no need for long-range missiles. Short-range missiles can change the entire picture in the occupied lands.”

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Mousavi added that Gaza would also receive increased military support from Iran. As for the Palestinian Authority which controls the West Bank and has in recent years cooperated closely with Israel on security issues, Mousavi remarked: “We hope that the brothers in the Palestinian Authority will help rather than impede this.” On Tuesday Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei urged the Islamic world to arm Palestinians to allow them to counter what he called Israel’s “genocide” in the Gaza Strip. In a speech marking the Muslim festival of Eid al-Fitr, Khamenei said Israel was acting like a “rabid dog” and “a wild wolf,” causing a human catastrophe that must be resisted. “The US president issued a fatwa that the resistance is disarmed so that they cannot respond to all those crimes (committed by Israel),” the supreme leader said, referring to Barack Obama’s call for the “disarmament of terrorist groups and the demilitarization of Gaza.” “We say the opposite. The world and especially the Islamic world should arm… the Palestinian people.”

Proving that he suffers from the mental disorder called *narcissistic liberalism* please read on. Lets rally around this guy and self flagellate ourselves till we are all murdered and still blame ourselves for it.

Every time I feel proud of being a Jew I hear or read about this crap and think of only disgust, embarrassment, and shame.Do other conservative Jews feel this way?

****a daily independent global news hour

with Amy Goodman & Juan González

Henry Siegman, Leading Voice of U.S. Jewry, on Gaza: "A Slaughter of Innocents"

Henry Siegman, president of the U.S./Middle East Project. He is the former executive director of the American Jewish Congress from 1978 to 1994 and former executive vice president of the Synagogue Council of America.

Read: “Israel Provoked This War.” By Henry Siegman (Politico)

Given his background, what American Jewish leader Henry Siegman has to say about Israel’s founding in 1948 through the current assault on Gaza may surprise you. From 1978 to 1994, Siegman served as executive director of the American Jewish Congress, long described as one of the nation’s "big three" Jewish organizations along with the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League. Born in Germany three years before the Nazis came to power in 1933, Siegman’s family eventually moved to the United States. His father was a leader of the European Zionist movement that pushed for the creation of a Jewish state. In New York, Siegman studied the religion and was ordained as an Orthodox rabbi by Yeshiva Torah Vodaas, later becoming head of the Synagogue Council of America. After his time at the American Jewish Congress, Siegman became a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He now serves as president of the U.S./Middle East Project. In the first of our two-part interview, Siegman discusses the assault on Gaza, the myths surrounding Israel’s founding in 1948, and his own background as a German-Jewish refugee who fled Nazi occupation to later become a leading American Jewish voice and now vocal critic of Israel’s policies in the Occupied Territories.

"When one thinks that this is what is necessary for Israel to survive, that the Zionist dream is based on the repeated slaughter of innocents on a scale that we’re watching these days on television, that is really a profound, profound crisis — and should be a profound crisis in the thinking of all of us who were committed to the establishment of the state and to its success," Siegman says. Responding to Israel’s U.S.-backed claim that its assault on Gaza is necessary because no country would tolerate the rocket fire from militants in Gaza, Siegman says: "What undermines this principle is that no country and no people would live the way that Gazans have been made to live. … The question of the morality of Israel’s action depends, in the first instance, on the question, couldn’t Israel be doing something [to prevent] this disaster that is playing out now, in terms of the destruction of human life? Couldn’t they have done something that did not require that cost? And the answer is, sure, they could have ended the occupation."

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: As we continue our coverage of the Israeli offensive in Gaza, we spend the rest of the hour with Henry Siegman, the former executive director of the American Jewish Congress, long described as one of the nation’s "big three" Jewish organizations along with the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League. Henry Siegman was born in 1930 in Frankfurt, Germany. Three years later, the Nazis came to power. After fleeing Nazi troops in Belgium, his family eventually moved to the United States. His father was a leader of the European Zionist movement, pushing for the creation of a Jewish state. In New York, Henry Siegman studied and was ordained as an Orthodox rabbi by Yeshiva Torah Vodaas. He later became head of the Synagogue Council of America. After his time at the American Jewish Congress, Siegman became a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He now serves as president of the U.S./Middle East Project.

AMY GOODMAN: Over the years, Henry Siegman has become a vocal critic of Israel’s policies in the Occupied Territories and has urged Isral to engage with Hamas. He has called the Palestinian struggle for a state, quote, "the mirror image of the Zionist movement" that led to the founding of Israel in 1948. He recently wrote a piece for Politico headlined "Israel Provoked This War." Nermeen Shaikh and I sat down with him on Tuesday. I started by asking Henry Siegman if he could characterize the situation in Gaza at the moment.

HENRY SIEGMAN: Yes, it’s disastrous. It’s disastrous, both in political terms, which is to say the situation cannot conceivably, certainly in the short run, lead to any positive results, to an improvement in the lives of either Israelis or Palestinians, and of course it’s disastrous in humanitarian terms, the kind of slaughter that’s taking place there. When one thinks that this is what is necessary for Israel to survive, that the Zionist dream is based on the slaughter of—repeated slaughter of innocents on a scale that we’re watching these days on television, that is really a profound, profound crisis—and should be a profound crisis—in the thinking of all of us who were committed to the establishment of the state and to its success. It leads one virtually to a whole rethinking of this historical phenomenon.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: What do you believe—Mr. Siegman, what do you believe the objectives of Israel are in this present assault on Gaza?

HENRY SIEGMAN: Well, they have several objectives, although I’m not sure that each of them is specifically responsible for the carnage we’re seeing now. It has what seems on the surface a justifiable objective of ending these attacks, the rockets that come from Gaza and are aimed—it’s hard to say they’re aimed at civilians, because they never seem to land anywhere that causes serious damage, but they could and would have, if not for luck. So, on the face of it, Israel has a right to do what it’s doing now, and, of course, it’s been affirmed by even president of the United States, repeatedly, that no country would agree to live with that kind of a threat repeatedly hanging over it.

But what he doesn’t add, and what perverts this principle, undermines the principle, is that no country and no people would live the way Gazans have been made to live. And consequently, this moral equation which puts Israel on top as the victim that has to act to prevent its situation from continuing that way, and the Palestinians in Gaza, or Hamas, the organization responsible for Gaza, who are the attackers, our media rarely ever points out that these are people who have a right to live a decent, normal life, too. And they, too, must think, "What can we do to put an end to this?"

And this is why in the Politico article that you mentioned, I pointed out the question of the morality of Israel’s action depends, in the first instance, on the question: Couldn’t Israel be doing something in preventing this disaster that is playing out now, in terms of the destruction of human lives? Couldn’t they have done something that didn’t require that cost? And the answer is: Sure, that they could have ended the occupation, with results—whatever the risks are, they certainly aren’t greater than the price being paid now for Israel’s effort to continue and sustain permanently their relationship to the Palestinians.

AMY GOODMAN: When you say that Israel could end the violence by ending the occupation, Israel says it does not occupy Gaza, that it left years ago. I wanted to play a clip for you from MSNBC. It was last week, and the host, Joy Reid, was interviewing the Israeli spokesperson, Mark Regev.

MARK REGEV: Listen, if you’ll allow me to, I want to take issue with one important word you said. You said Israel is the occupying authority. You’re forgetting Israel pulled out of the Gaza Strip. We took down all the settlements, and the settlers who didn’t want to leave, we forced them to leave. We pulled back to the 1967 international frontier. There is no Israeli occupation of the Gaza Strip. We haven’t been there for some eight years.

AMY GOODMAN: Henry Siegman, can you respond?

HENRY SIEGMAN: OK, yeah. That is of course utter nonsense, and for several reasons. First of all, Gaza is controlled completely, like the West Bank, because it is totally surrounded by Israel. Israel could not be imposing the kind of chokehold it has on Gaza if it were not surrounding, if its military were not surrounding Gaza, and not just on the territory, but also on the air, on the sea. No one there can make a move without coming into contact with the Israeli IDF, you know, outside this imprisoned area where Gazans live. So, there’s no one I have encountered, who is involved with international law, who’s ever suggested to me that in international law Gaza is not considered occupied. So that’s sheer nonsense.

But there’s another point triggered by your question to me, and this is the propaganda machine, and these official spokespeople will always tell you, "Take a look at what kind of people these are. Here we turned over Gaza to them. And you’d think they would invest their energies in building up the area, making it a model government and model economy. Instead, they’re working on rockets." The implication here is that they, in effect, offered Palestinians a mini state, and they didn’t take advantage of it, so the issue isn’t really Palestinian statehood. That is the purpose of this kind of critique.

And I have always asked myself, and this has a great deal to do with my own changing views about the policies of governments, not about the Jewish state qua Jewish state, but of the policies pursued by Israeli governments and supported—you know, they say Israel is a model democracy in the Middle East, so you must assume—the public has to assume some responsibility for what the government does, because they put governments in place. So, the question I ask myself: What if the situation were reversed? You know, there is a Talmudic saying in Pirkei Avot, The Ethics of the Fathers: "Al tadin et chavercha ad shetagiah lemekomo," "Don’t judge your neighbor until you can imagine yourself in his place." So, my first question when I deal with any issue related to the Israeli-Palestinian issue: What if we were in their place?

What if the situation were reversed, and the Jewish population were locked into, were told, "Here, you have less than 2 percent of Palestine, so now behave. No more resistance. And let us deal with the rest"? Is there any Jew who would have said this is a reasonable proposition, that we cease our resistance, we cease our effort to establish a Jewish state, at least on one-half of Palestine, which is authorized by the U.N.? Nobody would agree to that. They would say this is absurd. So the expectations that Palestinians—and I’m speaking now about the resistance as a concept; I’m not talking about rockets, whether they were justified or not. They’re not. I think that sending rockets that are going to kill civilians is a crime. But for Palestinians to try, in any way they can, to end this state of affair—and to expect of them to end their struggle and just focus on less than 2 percent to build a country is absurd. That is part of—that’s propaganda, but it’s not a discussion of either politics or morality.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: One of the things that’s repeated most often is, the problem with the Palestinian unity government is, of course, that Hamas is now part of it, and Hamas is considered a terrorist organization by Israel and also by the United States. I’d just like to read you a short quote from an article that you wrote in 2009 in the London Review of Books. You said, "Hamas is no more a 'terror organisation' ... than the Zionist movement was during its struggle for a Jewish homeland. In the late 1930s and 1940s, parties within the Zionist movement resorted to terrorist activities for strategic reasons." Could you elaborate on that and what you see as the parallels between the two?

HENRY SIEGMAN: Well, I’m glad I said that. In fact, I repeated it in a letter to The New York Times the other day, a week or two ago. The fact is that Israel had, pre-state—in its pre-state stage, several terrorist groups that did exactly what Hamas does today. I don’t mean they sent rockets, but they killed innocent people. And they did that in an even more targeted way than these rockets do. Benny Morris published a book that is considered the Bible on that particular period, the war of—

AMY GOODMAN: The Israeli historian.

HENRY SIEGMAN: Sorry?

AMY GOODMAN: The Israeli historian, Benny Morris.

HENRY SIEGMAN: The Israeli historian, right, then in the book Righteous Victims, in which he said—I recall, when I read it, I was shocked—in which he—particularly in his most recently updated book, which was based on some new information that the Israel’s Defense—the IDF finally had to open up and publish, that Israeli generals received direct instructions from Ben-Gurion during the War of Independence to kill civilians, or line them up against the wall and shoot them, in order to help to encourage the exodus, that in fact resulted, of 700,000 Palestinians, who were driven out of their—left their homes, and their towns and villages were destroyed. This was terror, even within not just the terrorist groups, the pre-state terrorists, but this is within the military, the Israeli military, that fought the War of Independence. And in this recent book, that has received so much public attention by Ari—you know, My Promised Land.

AMY GOODMAN: Shavit.

HENRY SIEGMAN: Ari Shavit. He describes several such incidents, too. And incidentally, one of the people who—according to Benny Morris, one of the people who received these orders—and they were oral orders, but he, in his book, describes why he believes that these orders were given, were given to none other than Rabin, who was not a general then, but he—and that he executed these orders.

AMY GOODMAN: Meaning?

HENRY SIEGMAN: Meaning?

AMY GOODMAN: What did it mean that he executed these orders, Rabin?

HENRY SIEGMAN: That he executed civilians. And the rationale given for this when Shavit, some years ago, had an interview with Benny Morris and said to him, "My God, you are saying that there was deliberate ethnic cleansing here?" And Morris said, "Yes, there was." And he says, "And you justify it?" And he said, "Yes, because otherwise there would not have been a state." And Shavit did not follow up. And that was one of my turning points myself, when I saw that. He would not follow up and say, "Well, if that is a justification, the struggle for statehood, why can’t Palestinians do that? What’s wrong with Hamas? Why are they demonized if they do what we did?"

AMY GOODMAN: I want to go to the Israeli prime minister earlier this month, Benjamin Netanyahu, vowing to punish those responsible for the killing of Mohammed Abu Khdeir, the Palestinian teen who was burned alive following the murders of three Israeli teens. But in doing so, Netanyahu drew a distinction between Israel and its neighbors in how it deals with, quote, "murderers."

PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: I know that in our society, the society of Israel, there is no place for such murderers. And that’s the difference between us and our neighbors. They consider murderers to be heroes. They name public squares after them. We don’t. We condemn them, and we put them on trial, and we’ll put them in prison.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu talking about the difference. Henry Siegman, can you respond?

HENRY SIEGMAN: Well, the only difference I can think of is that in Israel they made the heads of the two major pre-state terrorist groups prime ministers. So this distinction he’s drawing is simply false; it’s not true. The heads of the two terrorist groups, which incidentally, again, going back to Benny Morris, in his book, Righteous Victims, he writes, in this pre-state account, that the targeting of civilians was started by the Jewish terrorist groups, and the Arab—and the Arab groups followed.

AMY GOODMAN: You’re talking about Irgun and the Stern Gang.

HENRY SIEGMAN: Yes, yes. And as you know, both the head of the Irgun and both the head of the Stern Gang—I’m talking about Begin and Shamir—became prime ministers of the state of Israel. And contrary to Netanyahu, public highways and streets are named after them.

AMY GOODMAN: Henry Siegman, former head of the American Jewish Congress. We’ll continue our conversation with him in a minute.

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AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report, as we continue our conversation with Henry Siegman, president of the U.S./Middle East Project, former head of the American Jewish Congress. I interviewed him Tuesday with Nermeen Shaikh.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: I’d like to turn, Henry Siegman, to Khaled Meshaal, the leader of Hamas, who was speaking to Charlie Rose of PBS. He said Hamas was willing to coexist with Jews but said it would not live, quote, "with a state of occupiers."

KHALED MESHAAL: [translated] I am ready to coexist with the Jews, with the Christians, and with the Arabs and non-Arabs, and with those who agree with my ideas and also disagree with them; however, I do not coexist with the occupiers, with the settlers and those who put a siege on us.

CHARLIE ROSE: It’s one thing to say you want to coexist with the Jews. It’s another thing you want to coexist with the state of Israel. Do you want to coexist with the state of Israel? Do you want to represent—do you want to recognize Israel as a Jewish state?

KHALED MESHAAL: [translated] No. I said I do not want to live with a state of occupiers.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: That was Khaled Meshaal, the leader of Hamas, speaking to Charlie Rose. Henry Siegman, could you respond to that, and specifically the claim made by Israelis repeatedly that they can’t negotiate with a political organization that refuses the state of Israel’s right to exist in its present form?

HENRY SIEGMAN: Yes. It so happens that in both international custom and international law, political parties, like Hamas, are not required or even ever asked to recognize states, whether they recognize a state or not. The question is whether the government of which they are a part and that makes policy and executes policy, whether that government is prepared to recognize other states. And this is true in the case of Israel, as well, the government of Israel, any government. I, incidentally, discussed this with Meshaal, not once, but several times, face to face, and asked him whether he would be part of a government that recognizes the state of Israel, and he says—and he said, "Yes, provided"—they had a proviso—he said, "provided that the Palestinian public approves that policy." And he repeated to me the fact that—he said, "You’re absolutely right." He says, "People ask us will we recognize the state of Israel, and will we affirm that it’s legitimately a Jewish state." He said, "No, we won’t do that. But we have never said that we will not serve in a government that has public support for that position, that we will not serve in such a government."

But a more important point to be made here—and this is why these distinctions are so dishonest—the state of Israel does not recognize a Palestinian state, which is to say there are parties in Netanyahu’s government—very important parties, not marginal parties—including his own, the Likud, that to this day has an official platform that does not recognize the right of Palestinians to have a state anywhere in Palestine. And, of course, you have Naftali Bennett’s party, the HaBayit HaYehudi, which says this openly, that there will never be a state, a Palestinian state, anywhere in Palestine. Why hasn’t our government or anyone said, "Like Hamas, if you have parties like that in your government, you are not a peace partner, and you are a terrorist group, if in fact you use violence to implement your policy, as Hamas does"? So the hypocrisy in the discussion that is taking place publicly is just mind-boggling.

AMY GOODMAN: Henry Siegman, you’re the head, the former head, of one of the leading Jewish organizations, the American Jewish Congress.

HENRY SIEGMAN: Two of them, also of the Synagogue Council of America.

AMY GOODMAN: So, these are major establishment Jewish organizations. You said you went to see Khaled Meshaal, the head of Hamas, not once, but several times to meet with him. The U.S. government calls Hamas a terrorist organization. They will not communicate with them. They communicate with them through other parties, through other countries, to talk to them. Talk about your decision to meet with Khaled Meshaal, where you met with him, and the significance of your conversations.

HENRY SIEGMAN: Well, first of all, it should be noted that the U.S. has no such policy of not meeting with terrorist organizations. It has a policy of not meeting with Hamas. That’s quite different. We’re very happy to meet with the Taliban and to negotiate with them. And they cut off hands and heads of people, and they kill girls who go to school. And that didn’t prevent the United States from having negotiations with the Taliban, so that’s nonsense that we don’t talk to terrorist organizations. We talk to enemies if we want to cease the slaughter, and we’re happy to do so and to try to reach an agreement that puts an end to it. And why Hamas should be the exception, again, I find dishonest. And the only reason that we do that is in response to the pressures from AIPAC and, of course, Israel’s position. The largest caucus, parliamentary caucus, in Israel’s Knesset is called the caucus of Eretz Yisrael HaShlema, which the Likud leads.

AMY GOODMAN: Explain that in English, "the land of Israel."

HENRY SIEGMAN: An "eretz," in English—in English, it means the whole land of Israel. This is a parliamentary caucus, the largest caucus in the Knesset, which is totally dedicated to not permit any government to establish a Palestinian state anywhere in the land of Israel, headed by Likud, senior Likud members of Knesset, and headed—a party that is headed by the prime minister of Israel. And what boggles the imagination is that no one talks about this, no one points this out, and no one says, "How can you take these positions via Hamas if this is exactly what is going on within your own government that you are heading?"

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Henry Siegman, as you are far more familiar than most, the argument made by Israel and supporters of Israel is that what might be construed as a disproportionate response by Israel to Hamas has to do with the historical experience of the persecution of the Jews and, of course, the Holocaust. So how do you respond to those kinds of claims?

HENRY SIEGMAN: Well, I don’t accept that at all, because the lesson from the persecutions would seem to me—and certainly if you follow Jewish tradition, the lesson of those persecutions, we have always said, until the state of Israel came into being, is that you do not treat people in that kind of an inhumane and cruel way. And the hope always was that Israel would be a model democracy, but not just a democracy, but a state that would practice Jewish values, in terms of its humanitarian approach to these issues, its pursuit of justice and so on.

I have always felt that, for me, the Holocaust experience, which was important to me, since I lived two years under Nazi occupation, most of it running from place to place and in hiding—I always thought that the important lesson of the Holocaust is not that there is evil, that there are evil people in this world who could do the most unimaginable, unimaginably cruel things. That was not the great lesson of the Holocaust. The great lesson of the Holocaust is that decent, cultured people, people we would otherwise consider good people, can allow such evil to prevail, that the German public—these were not monsters, but it was OK with them that the Nazi machine did what it did. Now I draw no comparisons between the Nazi machine and Israeli policy. And what I resent most deeply is when people say, "How dare you invoke the Nazi experience?" The point isn’t, you know, what exactly they did, but the point is the evidence that they gave that decent people can watch evil and do nothing about it. That is the most important lesson of the Holocaust, not the Hitlers and not the SS, but the public that allowed this to happen. And my deep disappointment is that the Israeli public, precisely because Israel is a democracy and cannot say, "We’re not responsible what our leaders do," that the public puts these people back into office again and again.

AMY GOODMAN: You mentioned your experience as a Holocaust survivor. Could you just go into it a little more deeply? You were born in 1930 in Germany. And talk about the rise of the Nazis and how your family escaped.

HENRY SIEGMAN: Well, I don’t consider myself a Holocaust survivor, in the sense that I was not in a concentration camp. But I lived under Nazi occupation. I was born in 1930, but the Nazis came to power in—I think in 1933. And shortly thereafter, we lived in Germany at the time. My parents lived in Germany, in Frankfurt. And they left. My father decided to give up a very successful business and to move to Belgium then, and on the assumption that Belgium was safe, that we would be escaping the Nazis. But in 1940, the Germans invaded Belgium, and they invaded France. That was in early 1940, I believe. And so, it’s a long story, but for the next—from that point on until February 1942, when we arrived, finally arrived in the United States.

And how my father pulled that off is a miracle; to this day, I don’t fully understand, because there were six children that he had to bring with him, and my mother, of course. We ran from place to place. First we were at Dunkirk, where the classic evacuation, memorable evacuation took place, and the French and the British soldiers withdrew to across the channel. We happened to find ourselves there at the time. And then we were sent back by the—when the Nazi troops finally caught up with us in Dunkirk, they sent us back to Antwerp. And then my father had connections with the police chief, because of his business interests in Antwerp before the Nazis came. He was tipped off the morning that we were supposed to be—the Gestapo was supposed to come to our house to take all of us away. And so we just picked up, and we managed to get to Paris. And from Paris, we crossed—we were smuggled across the border into occupied Vichy France, and we were there for about a year, again without proper papers and in hiding. Then we tried to cross into Spain. And we did, but when we arrived at the Spanish border, they finally closed the border and sent us back into France.

So, then we managed to get a boat to take us from Marseille to North Africa, where we were interned briefly in a camp in North Africa. And then the—what I believe was the last ship, a Portuguese, a neutral ship, taking refugees to the United States stopped in North Africa. We boarded that ship. And we were on the high seas for two months, because the Nazi subs were already busy sinking the ships that they encountered. So we had to go all the way around to avoid various Nazi submarine-infested areas.

So after two months on the high seas, we arrived in New York, where we were sent to Ellis Island, which was full of Bundists, who had been German Bundists, who were arrested and were being sent back to Germany. But as we walked into Ellis Island into that hallway, something I will never forget, "We’re in America at last!" And those Bundists were greeting each other in the hallway, "Heil Hitler!" So the "Heil Hitlers" that we were trying to escape in Europe was the first thing we encountered as we landed on Ellis Island.

AMY GOODMAN: And how did you end up becoming head of one of the country’s—or, as you said, country’s two major Jewish organizations? And what was your position on Zionism after World War II?

HENRY SIEGMAN: Well, my father was one of the leaders of European Zionism. He was the head of the Mizrachi in the religious Zionist movement, not just in Belgium, but in Western Europe. And the leaders, the heads, the founders of the Mizrachi—mayor of Berlin himself, Gold, many others—were guests in our house in Antwerp. And they used to take me on their knees and teach me Hebrew songs from Israel. So, I had—I was raised on mother’s milk, and I was an ardent—as a kid even, an ardent Zionist. I recall on the ship coming over, we were coming to America, and I was writing poetry and songs—I was 10 years old, 11 years old—about the blue sky of Palestine. In those days we referred to it as Palestina, Palestine.

And so, into adulthood, not until well after the ’67 War, when I came across—and I got to know Rabin and others, and I came across a discussion in which I was told by Israelis, by the Israeli people who I was talking to, government, senior government people, that they had an initiative from Sadat about peace and withdrawal and so on. And Rabin said, "But clearly, the Israeli public is not prepared for that now." And that hit me like a hammer. I always had this notion drilled into me that if only the Arabs were to reach out and be willing to live in peace with Israel, that would be the time of the Messiah. And the Messiah came, and the Israeli leadership said, "No, public opinion is not ready for that." And I wrote a piece then in Moment magazine—if you recall, it was published by Leonard Fein—and he made it a cover story, and the title was, "For the Sake of Zion, I Will Not Remain Silent." And that triggered my re-examination of things I had been told and what was going on on the ground.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Prior to that, your sense had always been that if the Arabs reached out, there would be two states: Palestine and Israel.

HENRY SIEGMAN: I had no doubt about that. I mean, that was, you know, just a given, that we are sharing. The resolution said, you know, two states. The resolution, which Israel—the partition resolution, which Israel invoked in its Declaration of Independence, planted, rooted its legitimacy in that—it cited the Palestinian—the partition plan. But when someone these days says, "But there’s a partition plan that said that the rest of it, that was not assigned to Israel, is the legitimate patrimony of the Palestinian people," the answer given is, "Ah, yeah, but they voted they would not accept it, and the partition plan was never officially adopted." Well, why are you quoting it then in your Declaration of Independence, if you consider it to be null and void and not—anyway.

AMY GOODMAN: And the response of—or the slogan, the idea that was put forward so much in the founding of the state of Israel: Palestine is a land without people for a people without land?

HENRY SIEGMAN: Well, that was the common understanding and referred to repeatedly in Ari Shavit’s book and others, that the Zionist movement, at its very birth, was founded on an untruth, on a myth, that Palestine was a country without a people. And as he says, obviously—and he recognizes in his book that it was a lie. And therefore, from the very beginning, Zionism didn’t confront this profound moral dilemma that lay at its very heart. How do you deal with that reality? And as a consequence of that, one of the ways in which they dealt with it was to see to the expulsion of 700,000 people from their cities, from their towns and villages, and the destruction of all of them, which, to his credit, Ari Shavit writes about very painfully and honestly.

AMY GOODMAN: Henry Siegman, president of the U.S./Middle East Project. He’s the former executive director of the American Jewish Congress as well as the Synagogue Council of America. He recently wrote a piece for Politico headlined "Israel Provoked This War." We’ll link to it at democracynow.org. Tune in tomorrow for part two of our conversation with Henry Siegman, where he talks about U.S. support for Israel and U.S. media coverage.

By the way, Democracy Now! has a job opening. We have an opening for an on-air graphic designer and CG operator. Visit democracynow.org for more information.

Palestine Makes You DumbTo argue the Palestinian side, in the Gaza war, is to make the case for barbarism.By Bret Stephens

July 28, 2014 7:29 p.m. ET

Of all the inane things that have been said about the war between Israel and Hamas, surely one dishonorable mention belongs to comments made over the weekend by Benjamin J. Rhodes, deputy national security adviser for strategic communications.

Interviewed by CNN's Candy Crowley, Mr. Rhodes offered the now-standard administration line that Israel has a right to defend itself but needs to do more to avoid civilian casualties. Ms. Crowley interjected that, according to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Jewish state was already doing everything it could to avoid such casualties.

"I think you can always do more," Mr. Rhodes replied. "The U.S. military does that in Afghanistan."

How inapt is this comparison? The list of Afghan civilians accidentally killed by U.S. or NATO strikes is not short. Little of the fighting in Afghanistan took place in the dense urban environments that make the current warfare in Gaza so difficult. The last time the U.S. fought a Gaza-style battle—in Fallujah in 2004—some 800 civilians perished and at least 9,000 homes were destroyed. This is not an indictment of U.S. conduct in Fallujah but an acknowledgment of the grim reality of city combat.

Oh, and by the way, American towns and cities were not being rocketed from above or tunneled under from below as the Fallujah campaign was under way.Enlarge Image

Maybe Mr. Rhodes knows all this and was merely caught out mouthing the sorts of platitudes that are considered diplomatically de rigueur when it comes to the Palestinians. Or maybe he was just another victim of what I call the Palestine Effect: The abrupt and often total collapse of logical reasoning, skeptical intelligence and ordinary moral judgment whenever the subject of Palestinian suffering arises.

Consider the media obsession with the body count. According to a daily tally in the New York Times, NYT +0.63% as of July 27 the war in Gaza had claimed 1,023 Palestinian lives as against 46 Israelis. How does the Times keep such an accurate count of Palestinian deaths? A footnote discloses "Palestinian death tallies are provided by the Palestinian Health Ministry and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs."

OK. So who runs the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza? Hamas does. As for the U.N., it gets its data mainly from two Palestinian agitprop NGOs, one of which, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, offers the remarkably precise statistic that, as of July 27, exactly 82% of deaths in Gaza have been civilians. Curiously, during the 2008-09 Gaza war, the center also reported an 82% civilian casualty rate.

When minutely exact statistics are provided in chaotic circumstances, it suggests the statistics are garbage. When a news organization relies—without clarification—on data provided by a bureaucratic organ of a terrorist organization, there's something wrong there, too.

But let's assume for argument's sake that the numbers are accurate. Does this mean the Palestinians are the chief victims, and Israelis the main victimizers, in the conflict? By this dull logic we might want to rethink the moral equities of World War II, in which over one million German civilians perished at Allied hands compared with just 67,000 British and 12,000 American civilians.

The real utility of the body count is that it offers reporters and commentators who cite it the chance to ascribe implicit blame to Israel while evading questions about ultimate responsibility for the killing. Questions such as: Why is Hamas hiding rockets in U.N.-run schools, as acknowledged by the U.N. itself? What does it mean that Hamas has turned Gaza's central hospital into "a de facto headquarters," as reported by the Washington Post? And why does Hamas keep rejecting, or violating, cease-fires agreed to by Israel?

A reasonable person might conclude from this that Hamas, which started the war, wants it to continue, and that it relies on Israel's moral scruples not to destroy civilian sites that it cynically uses for military purposes. But then there is the Palestine Effect. By this reasoning, Hamas only initiated the fighting because Israel refused to countenance the creation of a Palestinian coalition that included Hamas, and because Israel further objected to helping pay the salaries of Hamas's civil servants in Gaza.

Let's get this one straight. Israel is culpable because (a) it won't accept a Palestinian government that includes a terrorist organization sworn to the Jewish state's destruction; (b) it won't help that organization out of its financial jam; and (c) it won't ease a quasi-blockade—jointly imposed with Egypt—on a territory whose central economic activity appears to be building rocket factories and pouring imported concrete into terrorist tunnels.

This is either bald moral idiocy or thinly veiled bigotry. It mistakes effect for cause, treats self-respect as arrogance and self-defense as aggression, and makes demands of the Jewish state that would be dismissed out of hand anywhere else. To argue the Palestinian side, in this war, is to make the case for barbarism. It is to erase, in the name of humanitarianism, the moral distinctions from which the concept of humanity arises.

Typically, the Obama administration is hedging its bets. The Palestine Effect claims another victim

==========================

The Israeli military announced it has called up 16,000 reservists and Prime Minister Netanyahu vowed to complete the destruction of Hamas's tunnel network in Gaza. Netanyahu said, "We are determined to continue to complete this mission with or without a cease-fire." The military reported it has uncovered 32 tunnels, and that it would take "a few more days" to destroy that tunnels it has located. Additionally, a U.S. defense official said the United States has allowed Israel access to a weapons stockpile for a resupply of grenades and mortar rounds. In 24-days of fighting, an estimated 1,372 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed, as well as 56 Israeli soldiers and three civilians. An Israeli strike on a busy market near Gaza City killed an estimated 17 people on Wednesday. Palestinians believed there was a temporary cease-fire in place, however Israel said that the area was a combat zone. The United Nations has accused Israel of violating international law for shelling a U.N. school on Wednesday that was being used to shelter refugees. U.N. officials said 20 people were killed and dozens were wounded in the attack. U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay has also accused Hamas militants of committing war crimes.

It's right here. Palestinians having babies up there with the highest rates in the world. Many even point out it is to sacrifice them against Israel. Where is the world condemnation of this?:

Palastinina birth rate explodes

April 21, 2002|By Tom Hundley Foreign Correspondent

SHUFAT REFUGEE CAMP, Israel — Married at 15, she gave birth to her first child less than a year later. Six months ago, she gave birth to her eighth. Fatima Shaher, 31, a Palestinian woman with dark eyes and an easy smile, loves children. She said she expects to have more.

In recent weeks, Israel has been unnerved by a ferocious wave of suicide bombs that has turned the simple act of boarding a city bus or eating in a crowded restaurant into an existential calculation. But some Israelis say that ticking beneath the surface of the violent confrontation between Arab and Jew, is a silent bomb, a demographic bomb.

Shaher and other Palestinian women are producing babies at one of the highest rates in the world. While Israelis are alarmed by the trend, Palestinians have mixed views. Some see it as their ultimate weapon; Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat once referred to Palestinian mothers as his "biological bomb." Others see the explosive birth rate as a catastrophe that will keep the Palestinians mired in poverty and despair.

Among Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the annual birth rate is 40 for every 1,000 of population; among Palestinians living in Israel, it drops slightly to 36 per 1,000. The birth rate among Jews across the region is 18.3 per thousand -- high by European standards but less than half that of the Palestinians.

At the moment, the population is evenly balanced between Arabs and Jews. But as the competition heats up for scarce living space and water resources, the Palestinians are on the brink of a population explosion that will swamp the Jewish populace in less than a generation.

The dry, narrow strip of land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea is already crowded with 9.7 million people. Arnon Sofer, a demographer at Israel's Haifa University, predicted last year that by 2020 the number of people living on the land will swell to 15.2 million, 58 percent of them non-Jews.

Similarly, a U.N. study predicts that by 2050 the population in the West Bank and Gaza will almost quadruple to almost 12 million.

Pointing to these numbers, Israeli leftists argue that the creation of a separate Palestinian state is the only way to guarantee the "Jewishness" of the Jewish state. On the Israeli right, the numbers have generated discussion of cruder measures. Among them, large transfers of Palestinians to neighboring Arab states, sufficiently crippling the instruments of Palestinian self-rule so that it poses no threat to Jewish domination, or imposing a "Chinese rule" that strictly limits the number of children Palestinian couples may have.

Many Palestinian politicians, on the other hand, are heartened by the statistics, thinking that if they just hang tough, time is on their side. As the present crisis worsens in the occupied territories, the Palestinian population, especially its men, cling to this straw.

"When we used to have land, we had many children to help with the work. Now we are having many children to help us recover our land," said Muhammad Nofal, 45, an unemployed driver who has seven children. He and his family live in the Shufat refugee camp, on the outskirts of Jerusalem.

"I have six sons, three for the struggle and three for me," he said, echoing the words of Arafat, who famously

JERUSALEM — Israel entered its latest conflict with Hamas armed with a high-tech arsenal, real-time battlefield intelligence and strong domestic support for dealing a heavy blow to Hamas.

But again on Friday, Israeli forces were taken by surprise, this time with two soldiers killed and one taken prisoner when militants once again attacked from a tunnel in Gaza.

As frustration grows in Israel over the military’s limited success so far in trying to neutralize Hamas, the militant Islamic group that governs Gaza, some military experts say it is increasingly evident that the Israel Defense Forces have been operating from an old playbook and are not fully prepared for a more sophisticated, battle-ready adversary. The issue is not specifically the tunnels — which Israel knew about — but the way Hamas fighters trained to use them to create what experts in Israel are calling a “360-degree front.”

“Hamas has changed its doctrine and is using the tunnels as a main method of operation,” said Israel Ziv, a retired general who headed the military’s Gaza division and its operations directorate. “This is something we learned amid the fighting.”

Of the 32 fortified tunnels that the Israeli military has exposed so far, at least 11 run deep beneath the border into Israeli territory. Others are part of an underground labyrinth inside Gaza connecting buildings, weapons stores and concealed rocket launchers.

Israeli troops in Gaza described Hamas gunmen who vanished from one house, like magicians, and suddenly popped up to fire at them from another. And while Hamas fighters are able to use the tunnels to surprise the forces from behind and to attack those in the rear, Israeli soldiers find themselves having to improvise.

In the Gaza war that began in late 2008, 10 Israeli soldiers were killed, four of them from friendly fire. This time, 63 soldiers have been killed, mostly in combat, and one is now a prisoner.

“The military has been playing it by ear,” said Amos Harel, a military affairs analyst for the newspaper Haaretz, who added that despite the Israeli military’s knowledge of the tunnels, its planners did not draft a new doctrine for prosecuting a land invasion. “But it is pretty good at doing that, and has done it many times.”

In this latest asymmetrical war with Hamas, the third in five years, Israel thought it was prepared. It had built up an integrated communications systems able to transfer intelligence in real time to air and ground forces, an advancement that military officials called a “force multiplier.”

Precision-guided missiles have destroyed up to a third of Hamas’s rocket stocks, according to Israeli officials, as well as hundreds of houses or apartments that the military described as militant command-and-control centers and many other weapons production sites and stores. In 24 days of intense bombing, 4,300 targets have been hit.PhotoIsraeli soldiers prepare to enter Gaza. Credit Uriel Sinai for The New York Times

Hamas still has up to 4,000 rockets, beyond the more than 3,000 that it has fired into Israel. More than 1,600 Palestinians have been killed, many of them civilians, according to Gaza officials, stirring international outrage and raising demands for a cease-fire.Continue reading the main story

And while Israel says it has killed hundreds of militants and arrested scores more, Hamas’s senior military command and political leadership remain intact.

“The leadership hides underground, like under Shifa Hospital,” said Eado Hecht, a military analyst who teaches at the Israeli military’s Command and General Staff College and at Bar-Ilan and Haifa Universities.

What Israel was apparently less ready for was Hamas fighters who are willing to engage and are trained to use tunnels, a tool of war whose roots go back to antiquity. During Israel’s last ground incursion in the winter of 2008-9, Hamas fighters largely avoided clashes, melting into the crowded urban landscape. This time, they were prepared for combat.

“What surprised me was the operational plans they built,” said Atai Shelach, a former commander of the military’s combat engineering unit.

The tunnels themselves, while well known, have also presented a challenge. After years of research there is still no technological solution for detecting and destroying them from afar, officials said. The shafts leading to Hamas’s labyrinth are “inside houses, so we won’t see them from the air,” said Mr. Hecht, the military analyst.Continue reading the main storyGraphicIn Gaza, a Pattern of Conflict

Similarities and differences in the last three major conflicts between Israel and Hamas.OPEN Graphic

“You have to go house to house and check,” he added.

On Thursday, the military distributed video footage of two tunnel shafts discovered under a prayer room in a mosque.

As Israel’s forces have slowly advanced, they have pummeled neighborhoods with heavy artillery, which analysts said was militarily necessary to safeguard soldiers. Those tactics have also drawn international condemnation for devastating civilian homes and infrastructure, and taking so many lives. “In a dense urban environment, you need to use aggressive force to save soldiers’ lives,” Mr. Harel, the military affairs analyst, said.

Special forces are equipped with portable Israeli-made Spike antitank guided missiles with ranges of 1.5 to 15 miles. Yiftah Shapir, a weapons expert at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University, said they could be used for almost anything, and were so accurate that they could pinpoint a window on a building.

Hamas has also upgraded its weaponry. Aside from its rockets, some of which can reach almost to the northern Israeli port city of Haifa, its arsenal includes antiaircraft and antitank missiles.

The number of Palestinian casualties in Gaza is comparable to that in the 2008-9 conflict, when about 1,400 were killed, according to Palestinian figures. Israel put the figure at closer to 1,120.PhotoTanks near the border. Frustration is growing in Israel over the military’s limited success so far in trying to neutralize Hamas. Credit Uriel Sinai for The New York Times

Still, a decisive Israeli victory over Hamas remains elusive.

“The question is not military; the question is what does Israel want,” said Yaakov Amidror, a retired general who served as Israel’s national security adviser until November. To bring complete quiet to Gaza would require a takeover and occupation of the territory for six months to a year, he said. Israel, which unilaterally withdrew its forces and settlements from the Gaza Strip in 2005, has little appetite to return.Continue reading the main story Continue reading the main story

What is left, military officials say, is to create deterrence. In recent years, Israeli strategists have spoken of the “Dahiya doctrine,” referring to Israel’s flattening of the Dahiya district in Beirut, a Shiite neighborhood that housed the command-and-control headquarters of Hezbollah, during its 34-day war in Lebanon in the summer of 2006. The idea was to inflict such damage that the other side would decide confrontation was not worthwhile.

While many Israelis deemed that war a failure, it has restored quiet to Israel’s northern border for the last eight years.

But experts say the Dahiya doctrine does not apply to Gaza. The Hamas command is not concentrated in one area, and the leader of the movement, Khaled Meshal, lives in exile, “in a five-star hotel in Qatar,” as Mr. Amidror put it, where the impact of the destruction is less immediate.

Gabi Siboni, who runs the military and strategic affairs program at the Institute for National Security Studies, said another reason was that Hamas “is not accountable, not to the world and not to its citizens.” By embedding its forces and fighting from within the population centers, he said, Hamas has raised its willingness “to sacrifice” its civilians “to an art form.”

Hamas has said it is fighting to lift the economic blockade from Gaza and wants an opening of the passages controlled by Israel and Egypt, among other things — demands that would be addressed if substantive cease-fire talks were to take place in Cairo. Israel wants blocks on Hamas’s ability to rearm and, eventually, to see Gaza demilitarized.

>From an Israeli soldier on the front lines who’s telling it as it is, to a member of his family.

Hi - Everything ok here – a couple of sirens, into the security, stay the mandatory 8-10 minutes and then pop out again and try to pick up where we left off.

Not so easy.

But we are glued to the radio and all the TV are on in every room just in case a new piece of news is aired and to hear if we suffered any more casualties

Last night one of our war correspondents - Alon Ben David –a very reputable journalist with decades of experience in security affairs- if you ever need a fluent English journalist to explain what is going on for some occasion in your area- have them hire him –from channel 10 news

In any case he just filed a 25 minute report from within Gaza accompanying the brigade commander as they went from post to post and we could clearly see that almost in every house there was a tunnel opening, hidden explosives, mines, rig's, rocket launchers outside etc. – almost in every civilian home

He pointed out a command center – abandoned by Hamas with plasma screens that were fed by cameras focused on the border fence tracking every IDF patrol.

Today, the IDF doesn't chances - find a booby-trapped house or getting fired on from a house- (and we lost 3 paratroopers who entered a booby-trapped home and were killed- , they call in the massive D-9 caterpillar tractors- huge monsters, with heavily armored plates and they just push the house down, burying anyone inside and setting off explosives

They have engaged terrorists and killed them all –in fact Hamas has lost hundreds of its fighters, many buried alive under houses and in their own tunnels, and many are giving themselves up

They have found dead Hamas terrorists in the tunnels – you could say in 3 versions for want of a better word:• Fighters- heavily armed and in IDf uniforms• Suicide bombers- with bomb vests on them• Large or heavy set Hamas people- why? Because they were meant to be ones to kidnap either live or dead Israelis and carry them back in the tunnels into Gaza-. They trained especially just for this task. Unbelievable!!

And the destruction is awesome- sewgiya, khan unis, -are almost leveled to the ground- just like what the IDF did to Nasrallah in the Dacha. Warnings were given to residents to evacuate – and over 100,000 did just that.

But others either did not heed or could not –as Hamas leveled weapons at them forcing them to stay – and therefore they unfortunately pad the price. It's always the question of intent. They target our civilian cities just for the purpose to inflict death. We target hamas strongholds in civilian areas who are using residents and their homes as shields. Not to mention ambulances filled with ammunition and explosives.

But we also paid a high price - 43 soldiers and officers- many of them high ranking as they lead their forces into battle - in other armies this does not occur – died and it is hard to accept. But the calls from within the home front is to carry on.

The news of the tunnels are headliners and you are going to fall off your seat when i tell you• 31-33 attack tunnels were known to exist –heading towards Israel. The intelligence knew about them and the answers as to why will have to be given after the war is over.

• They uncovered 31 and have destroyed 16 of them and no matter whether there's a ceasefire or not –these have to be destroyed. We said before that their purpose was the mega hit over Rosh Hashanah 2014 with them emerging from 31 tunnels with thousands of fighters and slaughtering Jews. A miracle that we entered the campaign today and not after September.

• Smuggling tunnels were in the hundreds but are of no significance to us as Egypt dealt with them and destroyed – they say –over 90% of them as their openings were in Egypt.

• But the city under the city is the big news. We knew they had an extensive tunnel system but we know hear that there are 5000- yes 5000 administrative, or command or logistical, communication tunnels crisscrossing Gaza allowing Hamas free movement underground almost all across the Strip. I think it may be almost of the same proportion as what the Vietcong had during the Vietnam war. Where was the soil put. Mostly in green houses and in house basements where the drones could not penetrate

So to sum it up till now:

• 3700 hamas targets attacked sine the operation began

• 2600 during the ground offensive

• 350 command centers of Hamas destroyed

• Over 300 Hamas terrorists killed- and more still under the rubble. Hamas tries to take the bodies away before we get to them

• IDF has used over 100 tons of explosive to explode the tunnels so far

• The air force struck at 80 targets over the weekend

• Hamas has fired over 938 rockets since the fighting began

• 180 intercepted by Iron dome – the rest in open spaces and few scored direct hits

• We have lost 43 of our solders and 124 are in hospital, 1 mortally wounded and 1 still missing

Ceasefire:

• Kerry tried but has it all wrong . He just doesn’t seem to understand the middle east mentality• He tried to put forward a proposal that was virtually a copy of the Qatar and Turkish proposal giving Hamas almost all that they wanted with no mention of Israel's defense needs or allowing us to destroy the tunnels during the ceasefire

• Israel rejected it and the only one real one with any chance of success is Egypt's proposal

• There have been 3 attempts at ceasefire – we accepted but Hamas breached it each time

• Hamas asked for the lasts ceasefire- a sign of weakness or desperation? –who knows- in any case it was for 24 hours to allow the residents to stock up for the Idle fit festival in 24 hour's time.

• It didn’t take 45 minutes for Hamas to open up with a rocket barrage again

• So in essence there is no ceasefire

• As for the residents coming out of the camps to pick up belongings from their homes in segiya or khan unis (major Hamas strongholds) was a waste of time as there was nothing for them to return to

• They are openly accusing Hamas for what is going on but cannot do anything for fear of death

• Haniyeh is still underground and doesn’t quite know what awaits him

• Mashal is still on his tread mill sweating hard but only from exertion, but will regain his composure after a good gourmet meal at the Qatar Hilton – could not resist it

• Muhammad Def. is still controlling Hamas and he doesn’t care as he has lost 2 legs, is in a wheelchair, and lost the use of 1 arm but is determined to fight tile the last Gaza resident

• By the way the IDF says it knows where he is but it is too complicated to get at him and the price of losing our soldiers is not worth it . But we have al long memory and a long arm and his time will come. There is a saying in Arabic- "kol kelb b'dyomo " – loosely translated –every dog has his day

While the mainstream media has focused solely on Hamas and Israel in the current ongoing war, there has been less attention given to the major role that the Islamic Republic of Iran has been playing in ratcheting up the conflict with its military assistance to Hamas fighters, including Iranian-built Fajr 5 and M-75 with ranges of approximately 75 kilometers. These are missiles and rockets that can target cities like Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. It is worth noting that the export of arms as well as military and weaponry assistance by the Islamic Republic to Hamas is legally prohibited by the United Nations Security Council, written in UN Resolution 1747. Although Iranian leaders often deny that they are supporting Hamas militarily, some, including former Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani, admitted that the Islamic Republic has been supplying military aid and technology to Hamas in the Gaza Strip. On the Iranian parliament’s website, Larijani stated, “We are honored to provide the Palestinian people with military aid, while all Arabic countries do is hold meetings. Palestinian people do not need lectures and meetings.” In addition, the commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Mohammad, Ali Jafari, admitted that Iran is supplying weapons to Hamas and other groups: “Iran provides technical assistance to all Muslims who fight against world arrogance.” What is Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s stance? Is he truly a moderate? Rouhani’s stance on arming Hamas and standing against Israel is no different from his predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Watch Here

In fact, across Iran’s political spectrum, there is no difference with regard to their position towards arming Hamas and fighting Israel. They all share anti-Israeli and pro-Palestinians views. In addition, whenever the international community or the United States has attempted to broker a peace, Iranian leaders have attempted to scuttle it. Their view is the same as what Ahmadinejad previously conveyed: “Who gave them [Mahmoud Abbas’ negotiating team] the right to sell a piece of Palestinian land? The people of Palestine and the people of the region will not allow them to sell even an inch of Palestinian soil to the enemy. The negotiations are stillborn and doomed.” The Iranian leaders hypocritically and frequently point out that the reasons they support the Palestinians and Hamas are humanitarian. Nevertheless, the main reason is advancing Iran’s regional hegemonic ambitions and its strategic, geopolitical and ideological goals. In addition, the Islamic Republic has been seeking to project its regional hegemonic supremacy by supporting not only Shiite groups such as Hezbollah (Lebanon), Bashar Al Assad (Syria), and Nori Al Maliki (Iraq), but also penetrating the Sunni communities and supporting groups such as Hamas. Since the Islamic revolution in Iran, the main foreign policy objectives of the Islamic Republic have been rivalry and antagonism towards the United Sates and its ally Israel. Under the presidency of Hassan Rouhani, Iran’s foreign policy has not shifted and it is crucial to draw attention to Iran’s intervention and military assistance as the Islamic Republic is major player in ratcheting up the ongoing war.

Gaza Tension Stoked by Unlikely Alliance Between Israel and EgyptStrategy of Squeezing Hamas Was Effective, but Helped Lead to Open Warfare, Officials BelieveBy Adam Entous in Jerusalem and Nicholas Casey in GazaWSJAug. 6, 2014 10:38 p.m. ET

The plan was simple: Israel and the new military-led government in Egypt would work together to ratchet up pressure on their shared enemy in the Gaza Strip - Hamas. But their miscalculations triggered a crisis. WSJ's Adam Entous joins the News Hub to discuss. Photo: Getty

Israel and Egypt quietly agreed to work in concert to squeeze Hamas after Egypt's military coup in 2013, a strategy that proved effective but which some Israeli and U.S. officials now believe stoked tensions that helped spur open warfare in Gaza.

When former military chief Abdel Fattah Al Sisi rose to power in Egypt after leading the overthrow of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi, Israel found the two countries had a common interest in suppressing the Islamist group that ruled Gaza. They worked to bring pressure on their shared enemy.

But a reconstruction of events leading up to the conflict over the past month found that in their determination to hem in Hamas, Israeli and Egyptian officials ignored warning signs of an impending explosion, U.S., Israeli and U.N. officials said.

The U.S. encouraged Israel and Egypt to forge a close security partnership. What Washington never anticipated was that the two countries would come to trust each other more than the Americans, who would watch events in Gaza unfold largely from the sidelines as the Israelis and the Egyptians planned out their next steps. (See an hour-by-hour breakdown on cease-fires in Gaza.)

The seeds of the latest Israel-Hamas conflict were sown in 2012, when Hamas broke ranks with longtime allies Syria, Iran and Lebanon's Hezbollah and threw its support behind the rebels fighting to unseat President Bashar al-Assad in Syria's civil war.

Hamas, which ruled Gaza for the past seven years, came to rely on cash supplied by Qatar transferred through Egypt, with the assent of Mr. Morsi, and on revenue from smuggling goods through tunnels reaching into Egypt. As long as Hamas controlled cross-border attacks, Israel tolerated the Islamist movement at its southern doorstep, Israeli officials said.

That pressure got dialed up when Mr. Morsi was deposed and Mr. Sisi rose to power. Israeli officials knew Egypt was as committed as they were to reining in Hamas when Mr. Sisi sent word earlier this year that his forces had completely destroyed 95% of the tunnels under Egypt's border with Gaza.

At first, Israeli intelligence officials said they didn't know what to make of Mr. Sisi, a devout Muslim who in previous posts treated his Israeli counterparts coldly, a senior Israeli official said. As Mr. Sisi moved to take control of the government, Israeli intelligence analysts pored over his public statements, writings and private musings, Israeli and U.S. officials said.Related

The Israeli intelligence community's conclusion: Mr. Sisi genuinely believed that he was on a "mission from God" to save the Egyptian state, the senior Israeli official said.

Moreover, as an Egyptian nationalist, he saw Mr. Morsi's Islamist group, the Muslim Brotherhood, and its Palestinian offshoot, Hamas, as threats to the state that needed to be suppressed with a heavy hand, the Israeli official said.

Israeli intelligence analysts interpreted Mr. Sisi's comments about keeping the peace with Israel and ridding Egypt of Islamists as a "personal realization that we—Israel—were on his side," the Israeli official said.

The revelation that Hamas was equally abhorrent to Mr. Sisi as it was to the Israeli government spurred efforts to reward him. Israel used its clout in Washington to lobby the Obama administration and Congress on his behalf, in particular arguing against a U.S. decision to cut off military aid to Egypt, Israeli officials said.Hamas Under Pressure

Hamas Under Pressure

June 2007: Hamas takes over the Gaza Strip after a short military conflict with the rival Fatah faction. Feb. 2012: Leaders of Hamas turn publicly against longtime ally President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, endorsing the revolt and breaking ranks with Hezbollah in Lebanon and Iran. June 2012: Mohammed Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood's candidate, is declared the winner of Egypt's first democratic presidential election. He facilitates a cash transfer from Qatar to Hamas. July 2013: President Morsi, who was close to Hamas, is deposed in a coup by Egypt's military and led by Field Marshal Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, who closes tunnels into Gaza. April 2014: Hamas abruptly agrees to form a government of technocrats under Western-backed Palestinian Authority. Americans say that was their wake-up call to the extent of Hamas's economic woes. July 8, 2014: Third major military clash between Israel and Hamas in less than six years begins. Aug. 5, 2014: Gaza cease-fire begins. American officials find out about it from the news media or Twitter.

—WSJ reporting

Mr. Sisi followed Israel's lobbying effort closely and was appreciative, the Israeli official said.

"It came at a very formative time for him" and helped cement a trusting relationship between friends who realized they were vital to each others' national security, he said.

Cooperation with Israel is highly sensitive in Egypt and Egyptian officials declined to discuss in detail the partnership between the neighbors against Hamas.

In Gaza, there was shock at the events unfolding in Cairo.

Under the protective umbrella of Mr. Morsi's Islamist-led government, Hamas had imported large quantities of arms from Libya and Sudan, as well as money to pay the salaries of government officials and members of their armed wing, Israeli and U.S. officials said. His successor abruptly changed that.

"One day we had been sitting having great conversations with Morsi and his government and then suddenly, the door was shut," Ghazi Hamad, Hamas's deputy foreign minister, said in an interview last month.

From having contact at "every level" of the Egyptian government under Mr. Morsi, now Hamas's only contact with Cairo was a military intelligence officer handling the Hamas brief who was more anti-Hamas than the Egyptian leader, U.S. officials said.

But U.S. officials didn't agree with what they saw as Mr. Sisi's "conspiracy theories" about Hamas threatening the Egyptian state. They feared his heavy hand against Islamists in Egypt would drive them underground and might set off a civil war. The criticism only deepened the bond between Mr. Sisi and Israel, U.S. and Israeli officials said.

Egypt secretly coordinated with senior Israeli officials led by Maj. Gen. (Res.) Amos Gilad, the director of the political-military affairs bureau at Israel's Defense Ministry, who is known in the Israeli security establishment as the "granddaddy" of the Israeli-Egyptian channel, Israeli officials said.

Mr. Gilad and other Israeli officials shuttled between Israel and Egypt and spoke to their Egyptian counterparts by phone. Officials said the two sides spoke every day, more often during crises. Although there were disagreements, Mr. Gilad forged a personal relationship with the Egyptian leader, officials said.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi in Cairo in July Egyptian Presidency handout/Reuters

A senior Israeli official said the two governments wanted to advance their shared interests and increase pressure on Hamas. But he insisted there was no master plan to squeeze it to the point that "something would explode."

Yet when Mr. Sisi closed nearly all of the tunnels along Egypt's border with Gaza but didn't compensate for the loss of those avenues by allowing the passage above ground of needed supplies, some Israeli officials said they privately began to raise alarm bells about the severity of Cairo's decisions.

At the start of the year, Hamas realized that Egypt's campaign to destroy the tunnels was edging it toward bankruptcy.

In April, Hamas abruptly agreed to form a government of technocrats under Western-backed Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, reconciling with the group that governed the West Bank after years of rivalry.

The growing dangers about Hamas's precarious position were flagged to Washington by the U.S. Consul General in Jerusalem, Michael Ratney. He saw the pressures building in the spring and concluded that Hamas was in desperate straits, unable to pay salaries to its 40,000 government workers in Gaza, and was now reaching out to the Palestinian Authority to try to relieve the pressure.

Mr. Abbas privately told diplomats afterward that he never expected Hamas to agree to the unity deal.

Mahmoud Zahar, a top Hamas leader in Gaza, said the group's inability to cover its monthly payroll forced it to reach out to the Palestinian Authority and Qatar, which pledged $60 million for three months. But U.S. and Israeli officials said Arab banks wouldn't make the transfer.

At the height of Hamas's distress, three Israeli teenagers were kidnapped in the West Bank in June and subsequently found dead. Israel quickly concluded that Hamas was responsible and rounded up its activists in the West Bank, infuriating the group's armed wing in Gaza.

After the abduction, which U.S. officials believe was carried out by Hamas members without the approval of their leaders in Gaza, Israeli intelligence officials warned policy makers that "overly pressuring Hamas will lead to a conflagration," according to another senior Israeli official.

Palestinian officials told diplomats they were making a last-ditch effort to get the money for salaries to Gaza, believing that doing so might help defuse tensions but nothing came of it, diplomats said.

Rocket fire from Gaza escalated, and Israel began to respond with airstrikes.

U.S. officials, who tried to intervene in the initial days after the conflict broke out on July 8 to try to find a negotiated solution, soon realized that Mr. Netanyahu's office wanted to run the show with Egypt and to keep the Americans at a distance, according to U.S., European and Israeli officials.

The Americans, in turn, felt betrayed by what they saw as a series of "mean spirited" leaks, which they interpreted as a message from Mr. Netanyahu that U.S. involvement was neither welcomed nor needed.

Reflecting Egypt's importance, Mr. Gilad and other officials took Mr. Sisi's "temperature" every day during the war to make sure he was comfortable with the military operation as it intensified. Israeli officials knew television pictures of dead Palestinians would at some point bring Cairo to urge Israel to stop.

"We knew we could not do something that went beyond what they could digest," a senior Israeli official said of the Egyptians. Egypt's view mattered more than America's, Israeli officials said.

When a tentative deal finally came together in Cairo to stop the fighting, Washington found itself outside looking in on the Israeli-Egyptian partnership once again.

The Obama administration knew from Palestinian contacts earlier this week that representatives of Israel, Egypt and the Palestinians were working on a new cease-fire proposal but didn't know details because they were left largely out of the discussions. (Compare cease-fires proposed and broken since the most recent conflict began in Gaza.)

Key American officials said they first heard about the breakthrough from Twitter and the media, rather than from their Israeli or Egyptian counterparts.

What did they miscalculate? Had this not happened, the tunnels would still be operational with terrorists and explosives getting free passage in. This is not a crisis. It is an operation that is disarming and dismantling an active terror group. A crisis is what they had before the war.

Click here to watch: Archbishop 'Hamas Fired Out of Our Church in Gaza'

A Catholic Archbishop ministering to Gaza’s minute Christian minority says Hamas terrorists forced him to allow them to use his church to fire rockets at Israel during the four week-long Operation Protective Edge. “Islam is the rule of this place and whatever Hamas says we must obey or face consequences,” Archbishop Alexios told The Christian Broadcasting Network. Alexios showed the reporter where Hamas terrorists used the roof of the center to fire rockets at Israel. Numerous Israeli UAV videos have shown similar images of rocket crews using mosques, schools, hospitals and other civilian structures as ammunition and gun nests, as well as launch sites – all war crimes according to the Geneva Conventions.

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Functioning as a tolerated Christian minority in an Islamic supremacist entity, some residents charge that Hamas has “imposed strict Taliban-style Islamic laws” on the populace, Muslim and Christian alike. However, Alexios allowed 2,000 Gazans to take refuge within the church compound during the fighting, according to the report. Hamas took over in Gaza, after a violent coup in 2007 against Fatah and the Palestinian Authority, led in the West Bank by Mahmoud Abbas.

Click here to watch: Winner of Arab Idol Sings on PA TV: We Will Replace Israel With Palestine

Hopes that Fatah will be a calming influence on Hamas in the effort to end the fighting in Gaza have been tempered by mixed messages the supposedly more moderate wing of the Arab Palestinian leadership is sending to its international audience and its Arab constituents - including boasting on its Facebook page of the number of Israelis it has killed. In a post seemingly aimed at reminding 'Palestinians' it hates Israel as much as Hamas, the U.S.-designated terrorist organization that governs Gaza, the Fatah party seems to take issue with the idea that it isn't doing enough to fight the Jewish state.

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The belligerent Facebook message - containing fabricated statistics - was posted on the official home page of Fatah’s Facebook even as representatives of the party founded by the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat were in Cairo for the peace talks. “Listen well! To whoever does not know Fatah and argues with this giant movement: Fatah has killed 11,000 Israelis; Fatah has sacrificed 170,000 Martyrs (Shahids)...; Fatah was the first to carry out operations (i.e., terror attacks) during the first Intifada... Fatah was the first to fight in the second Intifada (i.e., PA terror campaign 2000-2005)... Fatah led the Palestinian attack on Israel in the UN... Fatah leads the peaceful popular resistance against Israel... Stop and think before you attack [Fatah]."Source: Fox News

In public: "Israel has the right to defend itself so says the Golfer in Chief. In private: " just don't expect to get any offensive arms from us". White House in the dark over arms supplies to Israel: report

AFP 3 hours ago

An Israeli artillery fires a 155mm shell towards targets in the Gaza Strip from their position near Israel&#39;s border with the Palestinian enclave on August 2, 2014

An Israeli artillery fires a 155mm shell towards targets in the Gaza Strip from their position near Israel's border with the Palestinian enclave on August 2, 2014 (AFP Photo/David Buimovitch)

Washington (AFP) - Israel secured supplies of ammunition from the Pentagon last month without the approval of the White House or the State Department, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.

Since officials there were caught off guard as they tried to restrain Israel's campaign in Gaza, the administration of President Barack Obama has tightened controls on arms shipments to Israel, the newspaper said, quoting US and Israeli officials.

But the case illustrated that the White House and the State Department have little influence over the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the paper said, quoting officials from both countries.

The Journal said that US officials, rather than play their traditional role as mediators, have now been reduced to bystanders as Israeli forces and Hamas battle it out.

On Wednesday, the paper said, Obama and Netanyahu had a particularly tense phone call.

Netanyahu has "pushed the administration aside" but wants America to give Israel security assurances in exchange for agreeing to a long-term deal with Hamas, the Journal said, quoting US officials.

Israel and militants in Gaza were holding their fire Thursday after a new truce got off to a shaky start, with night-time Palestinian rocket fire followed by Israeli air strikes.

Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction, often toutedinternationally as a "moderate" alternative to Hamas, has declared its intentions tofurther increase its terror attacks against Israeli citizens. A new video releasedto YouTube by Fatah's "military wing," the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, declares theunity of Fatah's various military branches, and announces a recent decision tostrengthen Fatah's military activities. Filming in what they term a "jointoperations room" in Gaza, the Fatah terrorists are seen in the video proudlydisplaying three-barrel rocket launchers, anti-tank rocket launchers, assault riflesand portable communications devices. One of the terrorists is filmed telling thecamera that "the rifle" was and remains the only option to "free the occupiedlands," and that Fatah has never abandoned the path of violent terrorism. Asdemonstrated by the armed presence in Gaza, Fatah's Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades hasreportedly taken an active part in the terror war being fought against Israel fromGaza, joining Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other terror organizations against Israelduring Operation Protective Edge.

In Judea and Samaria, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades have likewise declared "openwar" on the Jewish state. The declaration has been followed by numerous Fatah terrorattacks, including a shooting attack south of Bethlehem last Sunday, after anothershooting attack the Sunday before in Neve Tzuf. On Monday, a wanted Fatah terroristwas killed by IDF forces near Shechem after he refused to turn himself in and openedfire on the soldiers. While there has been a common perception globally that Abbas'sFatah is somehow more "moderate" and accessible as a peace partner than Hamas orother alternative groups, Fatah has been open about its goals to destroy Israel. Thegroup just last Sunday falsely claimed to have murdered 11,000 Israelis, and haslikely called for the ethnic cleansing of Jews from Israel. Fatah's position is inline with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) charter of 1968, which callsfor "armed struggle" and "armed revolution," declaring "armed struggle is the onlyway to liberate Palestine," and calling on local Arabs to "be prepared for the armedstruggle." Following the charter, the PLO and Fatah were defined internationally asterror organizations, a status which was removed during the 1993 Oslo Accordsprocess.

When I first glanced at the headline on today's Jerusalem Online and reports in theJerusalem Post and other Israeli newspapers, I thought they must have been a satire:"Washington officials have told Egypt that the US will grantee Israel's commitmentto any agreement signed." But it was not a satire. The was deadly serious, confirmedby other Israeli newspapers and sources in Cairo.

The US offering to Hamas to "guarantee" Israeli commitments to any agreement signed?As if anyone needed proof of the Obama Administration's antipathy to Israel, here itwas in black and white. If anyone party needed a commitment to enforce itsagreements in any deal, it would have been Hamas, that has been known to break everycommitment it ever made. To pick just a few at random:

* Hamas recently violated 9 cease fire agreements, including two of its own* Hamas illegally siphoned thousands of tons of cement and steel shipments itreceived from international donors and Israel that it had committed to use the buildthe civilian infrastructure in Gaza for hospitals, schools and apartment buildings;instead it spent upwards of $500 million of these humanitarian shipments to covertlybuild numerous tunnels buried deep underground into Israel in order to carry outmurderous raids on Israeli civilian communities intended to kill tens of thousandsof Israelis* Hamas violated the 2012 Cease Fire negotiated by then State Department SecretaryHillary Clinton together with then Egyptian Muslim President Mohammed Morsi in whichHamas committed to stop smuggling weapons and missiles into Israel, of which nearly4000 were recently launched into 80% of Israel's population centers* Hamas violated the commitment to the Palestinian Authority that it would neverlaunch a coup d'état against the PA after Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005. But in2007, Hamas did exactly that in a bloody takeover of Gaza, kicking out and killingPA officials.* Hamas violated a publicly solemn commitment to its own civilians that it woulduphold the rule of law (yea, right) when it took over Gaza only to subsequentlyexecute hundreds of dissident Gazans, torture and imprison thousands of politicalopponents, violently persecute the minority of Christians still living in Gaza andimprison and prosecute suspected gay Gazans.* Violating a commitment it made in the Clinton negotiated 2012 truce that it wouldcease its missile attacks on Israel.

And at the same time, it should be noted that President Obama personally signed anofficial letter at the time of the 2012 negotiated cease fire to Prime MinisterNetanyahu that the US would provide Israel with the technology to defeat and stopHamas smuggling of weapons. But subsequent to that empty promise, Hamas soonreceived in massive quantities from Iran, Sudan, and North Korea. That promise wasnever carried out.

Israel on the other hand meticulously fulfilled its part of the bargain by severelyrelaxing the blockade on Gaza, allowing tons of previously restricted cement andsteel into Gaza, increasing the number of daily truckloads of food, medical stuffand building equipment through the two Israeli checkpoints into Gaza by more than250 truckloads a day ( a commitment is still upheld during the Hamas war againstIsrael, a fact mostly ignored by the mainstream media blindly committed to the Hamasnarrative that Israel was the aggressor).

Remember when Obama spoke to the annual AIPAC conference a few years back andceremoniously declared, "I got your back." This is the same President who, as theWall Street Journal disclosed last week, personally held up the Israeli request foradditional Hellfire missiles that it had depleted in its war with Hamas.

As far back as 1967, the United States had made a firm promise to Israel that itwould never allow the Egyptians to blockade the Straits of Hormuz, considered thelifeline of Israel. But when the Egyptians blockaded the Straights of Hormuz in May1967, what did the US do? Nothing.

And in the current round of negotiations being held in Cairo now, according toleaked details in Egyptian newspapers reported by today's Jerusalem Online

Israel agreed to make the following astonishing concessions:

* "Israel will stop its attacks in Gaza - in land, sea and air. No ground operationswill be conducted."* Israel has agreed to the "opening of crossings between Israel and Gaza [in which]Movement of people and merchandise will be allowed, to rebuild Gaza."* "Eliminating the buffer zone in the North and East of Gaza and deployment ofPalestinian military forces starting from January 1, 2015"* "Freedom of fishing and action in the territorial waters of the Palestinians inGaza to a range of 6 miles. The range will gradually be increased, to no less than12 miles…"* "Israeli authorities will assist the Palestinian Authority to restore thefoundations in Gaza, as well as help provide the necessary living needs for thosewho were forced to leave their homes due to the battles. Also, Israel will provideemergency medical attention to the wounded and will supply humanitarian assistanceand food to Gaza as soon as possible."

It should be noted that even during the recent murderous war waged by Gaza, Israelhad opened up its borders to treat wounded Gaza civilians in Israeli hospitals andcontinued to supply daily more than 500 tons daily of humanitarian assistance andfood to Gaza even as the Hamas launched thousands of rockets and attempted massmurder of Israeli civilians by attempts, fortunately thwarted by Israel, toinfiltrate dozens of fully armed Hamas terrorists into Israel via the tunnels dug byHamas.

And what did the Hamas commit to?

* "All Palestinian factions in Gaza will stop the attacks against Israel, in theland, the sea and the air; also, building tunnels from Gaza to Israeli territorywill be stopped."

That was it. Virtually the same identical commitments it agreed to in December 2012.Quite interestingly, Hamas insisted--which Israel did not agree to--to the immediateopening of a Gaza seaport and airport. But the party that suggested to Hamas thatthey insist on these demands was none other than the Qataris, the country--which isthe top financial patron in the world today to Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood andmany of its terrorist offshoots--curiously selected personally by Obama to be theofficial diplomatic interlocutor in the Cairo talks. The role that Qatar wassupposed to play was to convince the group to make concessions. But curiously theopposite happened. Qatar, the country to which that the US just sold $11 billionworth of military weapons, actually sabotaged the negotiations. So far, thePresident has been studiously silent on this betrayal.

In light of the fact that Hamas has manifestly never upheld any of the commitmentsit has ever made, the salient question that has to be asked is why Obama did feelcompelled to assuage Hamas with an assurance that the US would "guarantee" thatIsraeli upheld its commitments? The word "guarantee" has a rather expansive andvague latitude for definition. The most recent demonstration of an Americanguarantee that Israel would halt its defensive war against Hamas was the suspensionof critical military deliveries to Israel during the height of the conflagrationinstigated by Hamas.

Indeed, for all the public affirmations made last week--after the WSJ expose-- bythe Obama Administration that the US was "totally committed to the security ofIsrael," Obama suddenly decides to make a promise to Hamas--whose covenant differsnot one bit from the fascist radical Islamic doctrine adopted by ISIL--that it wouldenforce the commitments made by Israel, which in fact have historically beenstudiously upheld by Israel.

If Obama was truly sincere in his now obviously contrived promises to "watch[Israel's] back", he would have offered to guarantee Hamas commitments, a terroristgroup that has repeatedly violated its commitments in previous agreements. But withhis statement that he would "guarantee" Israeli commitments and not those made byHamas, the President has revealed his true colors for everyone to see.

Steven Emerson is Executive Director of the Investigative Project on Terrorism(www.investigativeproject.org), a non profit group that investigates the threat ofradical Islam, author of 6 book on terrorism and national security and executiveproducer of the award winning 2013 documentary "Jihad in America: The GrandDeception" (www.granddeception.com)

Click here to watch: Rockets Launched From Gaza, PM orders IDF to hit Back at Hamas

The Israeli Air Force has struck terrorist targets in the Gaza Strip in response to rocket fire this afternoon, following Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's order to strike back hard against the perpetrators. Sources in Gaza reported at least one IAF strike on an open area, which did not cause any injuries. It is possible the target was the site from where the rockets were launched, although this has not been confirmed. According to Palestinian Arab media reports cited by Walla!, the Israeli airstrike response focused on the Gaza neighborhoods of Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahia. The Arab report claims a strike was also carried out adjacent to an UNRWA school in eastern Rafah, in the Al-Marazi "refugee camp" in central Gaza, Deir al-Balah and Al-Karara in southern Gaza. An IDF spokesman said: "The IDF was prepared for this possibility and is determined to protect the security of the residents of the State of Israel. Earlier Tuesday, At least three rockets were fired towards the southern Israeli city of Be'er Sheva, hours before the end of a 24-hour extension to a five-day truce declared last week.

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In an even more explosive development, an unnamed security source told Walla! news site the rocket attack was ordered directly by Hamas's Qatar-based head Khaled Meshaal. The source claimed Meshaal had bypassed Hamas's official "military wing", the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, and ordered a specially-assigned unit of Hamas operatives answerable directly to him to launch the attack. The source claimed Meshaal was aiming to sabotage negotiations for a long-term truce in Cairo, which were not going his way. His plan may have worked: apart from the air strike in the last few minutes Prime Minister Netanyahu has ordered Israel's delegation to the talks in Cairo to return to Israel, effectively putting an end to talks there. Weighing in on the rockets, Eshkol Regional Council head Chaim Yelin remarked: "who expected anything else? This is the language of Hamas. A language that for 14 years the state of Israel apparently hasn't understood."Source: Arutz Sheva

A senior Hamas official admitted for the first time on Wednesday that the organization's armed wing, the Kassam Brigades, was behind the kidnapping and murder of Israeli teens Nafatli Fraenkel, Gil-Ad Shaer and Eyal Yifrah in the Judea in June. The Hamas official, Salah al-Aruri made the comments during a conference of Islamic clerics in Turkey. He praised the "heroic action of the Kassam Brigades who kidnapped three settlers in Hebron."Watch HereIsrael has contended that Hamas was behind the kidnapping of the boys, a claim that Hamas had previously denied. In the aftermath of the kidnapping , the IDF launched a wide-scale operation in Judea and Samaria , arresting hundreds of Hamas operatives. The two suspects in the kidnapping, Marwan Kawasme and Amar Abu Aysha are Hebron-area Hamas operatives who remain at large. The alleged mastermind of the kidnapping, Hussam Kawasame was arrested on July 11. On Monday, Border Patrol officers demolished the homes of Hussam Kawasme and Abu Aysha and sealed off the home of Marwan Kawasme.Source: Jpost

The beheading of U.S. journalist James Foley has raised concerns in the West about Islamist threats. But Israel has been facing this specter for decades and – given Israel's proximity to the Islamist threat – the Jewish State is the canary in the coal mine for the West. But Gaza seems to be the Western blind spot, even though the Hamas-ISIS parallels are glaringly obvious.

Since beheadings are the current media focus, and ISIS has beheaded infants, it's worth noting that Hamas praised the 2011 Itamar murders, which involved the decapitation of a baby. Islamist beheadings should surprise no one, given that they've been happening for much of (and despite) modernity – perhaps because "Islam is the only major world religion today that is cited…to legitimize beheadings," according to this study.

While there have been no reported Hamas beheadings of journalists, the similarities between Hamas and ISIS are more important than their differences.Both would like to establish a Caliphate. Hamas Interior Minister declared as much in this 2013 speech.

Both gain and keep power through savagery and fear. Hamas rose to power in Gaza thanks to its violent, 2007 coup, and recently planned a second putsch (in the West Bank). Hamas famously threw its political opponents off rooftops.

Like ISIS, Hamas uses clinics, schools, mosques, and charities to gain legitimacy, and inculcates children with the values of jihadi terror. A Vice documentary exposed how ISIS indoctrinates and uses children for war, but Hamas has been doing so for years, educating children to worship death and using child soldiers.

Hamas' use of human shields has been widely documented (and proven very effective in turning public opinion against Israel by exponentially increasing Gazan civilian casualties). ISIS used 500 Yazidi captives and 39 abducted Indians as human shields.

ISIS is known for its expulsion of Christians from Mosul and its genocidal murder of Yazidis and Christians who refuse to convert to Islam or pay the jizyah. Hamas would undoubtedly behave the same way towards the religious minorities within its reach, if Israeli Jews didn't have the protection of a superior military, and if Hamas didn't depend on international donations to Gaza that might dry up after a wholesale slaughter of the tiny Christian community there. But even with these checks on Hamas' brutality, Hamas regularly practices and preaches religious hatred. For years, Hamas has attacked Christians, including defiling Christian graves, abducting and murdering Christians, and more recently using a Gazan church to launch rockets at Israel. Hamas preaches hateful incitement against Jews, has desecrated Jewish holy sites, and has murdered hundreds of Jews in terrorist attacks.

ISIS uses Sharia to justify its barbaric treatment of women. Also enamored with Sharia, Hamas treats women as second-class citizens and endorses honor killings.Like ISIS, Hamas advocates the death penalty for homosexuals, lets Islamic morality police govern economic activity, and punishes crime with lashings, amputations, and executions. There have been no broadcast beheadings of homosexuals by ISIS yet, but such horrors can't be far off, given that ISIS fighters include gay-hating Westerners.

Yet, astonishingly, President Obama and liberals have continually called for restraint when Israel's military has confronted Hamas (after Hamas' countless attacks against Israeli civilians) and Obama has pressed Israel to negotiate with Hamas (as if the U.S. would ever negotiate with ISIS). Worse still, the Obama Administration tried to advance Hamas' negotiating position and recently pressured Israel into letting Hamas keep its military capabilities. Given the opportunity to obliterate ISIS' terrorist infrastructure, would the U.S. ever spare any part of it?

Even more troubling – in terms of the perils involved – is Obama's feckless strategy towards the Iranian regime, which is the world's chief sponsor of Islamist terrorist groups (including Hamas and Hezbollah). Like so many Islamist terrorist organizations, Iran executes homosexuals; mistreats women; persecutes religious minorities; employs barbaric, Sharia-law punishments (like amputation and stoning); and brutalizes political dissenters (among myriad other human rights violations). But unlike the terrorist organizations, Iran could theoretically acquire a nuclear weapons capability in under two months. Imagine an Islamist state, which openly supports Islamist terrorists, possessing nukes. Alarmingly, Obama's overall approach and eagerness to negotiate any deal he can get with Iran have signaled weakness in a region that respects only strength. As if to laugh at Obama's naiveté, the Iranian regime has continued supporting Hamas despite the sanctions relief that Obama delivered to the Islamic Republic. Obama's meek and misguided policy has only emboldened the Iranian regime, improved its economic condition, and given diplomatic cover to Iran's nuclear program.Islamist groups like ISIS, al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, and Iran-backed Hamas and Hezbollah, all seek the destruction of Western values and civilization. The pursuit of nukes by the Islamist state of Iran – which could eventually enable nuclear terrorism by Iran's jihadi proxies – poses the greatest threat of all. The West ignores these facts at its peril, and should therefore support Israel's war against Hamas, and its efforts against Iranian nukes, just as the U.S. has rightly (albeit tardily and minimally) supported the Kurds in their fight against ISIS.

Noah Beck is the author of The Last Israelis, an apocalyptic novel about Iranian nukes and other geopolitical issues in the Middle East

Israel's counterterrorism operations in Gaza have effectively deteriorated Hamas' military capabilities and facilitated in breaking down the terrorist group's chain of command, security officials told the Jerusalem Post Tuesday.

Later that day, amid the report's assessment that Hamas had lost much of its will to fight, the terrorist group agreed to the latest Egyptian-brokered ceasefire.

There is growing discontent among the Hamas ranks, as the group suffered significant terrorist casualties, destruction of vital military infrastructure, rocket construction capabilities, and major destruction of its sophisticated underground tunnel network, the Post report said. Israel's successful targeted assassination of senior Hamas leaders severely disrupted the terrorist organization's command and control structure, and even resulted in the desertion of rank and file terrorists from battle.

In light of the assassinations, growing suspicion of Israeli intelligence infiltration also forced Hamas to halt the use sophisticated technologies in the battlefield, significantly reducing its ability to fight. The growing mistrust and panic led Hamas to summarily execute over 20 Palestinians accused of collaborating with Israel.

Mid-range commanders allegedly fled with their families from conflict zones to avoid having their houses destroyed, producing a sense of mistrust and abandonment among remaining fighters. In one case, 14 Hamas fighters were reportedly trapped in a tunnel for 20 days with no supplies while their commanders failed to even attempt a rescue effort. Some are believed to have starved to death.

According to the Israeli assessments, many within Gaza's society are disillusioned with Hamas, whose leaders were among the first to hide underground leaving the civilians to cope with Israeli retaliation to Hamas' indiscriminate terrorist campaign. Hamas is also accused of confiscating aid transferred into the Gaza Strip, intended for needy civilians, and giving it to its own members.

None of this reality has stopped Hamas from claiming victory. Hours before the cease-fire went into effect, dozens of rockets and mortar shells targeted southern Israel, wounding dozens and killing one Israeli. The Hamas Al-Qassam Brigades boasts of its terrorist campaign and perceived diplomatic victory over Israel, touting that it is preparing for the next round of hostilities against the Jewish state.

Hamas leadership continues to make clear that they remain committed to Israel's destruction. The Gaza war showed that they are willing to sacrifice their own people, by constantly firing from civilian population centers and structures, including mosques and hospitals, in hopes of advancing that goal.

Click here to watch: Al-Qaeda Rebels Take Over Part of Syrian Border with Israel, IDF Officer Wounded

The IDF responded with artillery fire at Syria after an IDF officer who was in an IDF outpost adjacent to the Quneitra crossing was hit by a Syrian bullet. The event came as Syrian rebels led by al-Qaeda affiliated groups retook control of the coveted border crossing from forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad. Earlier, two mortars fired from Syria hit the Israeli Golan Heights Wednesday, causing damage to two vehicles. The IDF said it targeted two Syrian army positions and "hits were confirmed." It gave no further details. The officer is in moderate condition after sustaining a stray bullet to the chest. "There was errant fire from the internal fighting in Syria and an officer was moderately wounded in the Golan Heights," an IDF spokeswoman told AFP, saying the fighting was "right next to the border." The incidents came amid massive fighting in the Quneitra crossing, prompting Israeli officials to warn local famers to leave the area. Ynet has learned that the crossing has passed to rebel control and that the Al-Nusra Front, Syrian Revolutionary Front, Ansar al-Islam and Ansar al-Khalifa Brigade are still clashing with Syrian forces, who have reportedly lost over 20 men as part of the fighting.

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Reports and eyewitnesses said the Syrian flag has been taken down from the Syrian side of the border. ISIS is not involved in the offensive. Israel feared such an incident would take place as rebels and the Syrian regime battled for the crossing, which is one of the sole remaining areas controlled by Syrian President Bashar Assad's forces. Residents reported hearing explosion from the fire for many miles away even before the mortars hit. The news came as Israel entered its first day without fighting in the south, after parties reached a ceasefire agreement that brought an end to seven weeks of violent fighting between Israel and Hamas. In wake of the incident and other like it, the IDF began building "assault stations" in the Golan Heights - suppressive fire posts along the border with Syria that would offer quick response to any an attack against Israel. The suppressive fire posts, named by the IDF "Defensive Canopy," will be built in the 210th Territorial Division, that was recently established to secure the border with Syria. Similar posts have already been built along the Gaza border to coordinate between different military elements in case of an attack against IDF troops. The coordination between the division, the Air Force and others elements, allows for a relatively quick response to suppress the attackers. The death toll from three years of Syria's civil war has risen to more than 191,000 people, the United Nations reported last Friday.